LinkedIn Stories launched last Friday and managed to divide this country even further. You’re either in one of two camps: You either hate LinkedIn Stories or you love them.
There is no in between.
Much like Facebook & Instagram, LinkedIn Stories lets users post updates that only live on the site for only 24 hours, then disappear. After it launched last Friday, tweet after tweet asked: But, why? Why do we need Stories on LinkedIn? Here’s why.
In a blog post, LinkedIn said: “Stories are a great way to start lightweight conversations related to work-life. Based on what we’ve heard from our members during our testing across the globe, the stories that resonate well are professional in nature, and make it easy for a response – for example, you could share a unique perspective from your work day, ask a question to your network, share insights on timely breaking news, walk through a product demo or teach others a new skill.”
People may be envisioning ‘what I ate for breakfast’ Instagram-like Stories have arrived on LinkedIn. But, there’s actually a lot to learn from Instagram Stories, if you follow the right accounts and that type of same messaging can be applied to LinkedIn Stories.
My guess is that some (not all) of the people tweet-complaining about LinkedIn Stories have never executed a Story on any social media platform and/or simply don’t know how to use it, technically or creatively. And, because they haven’t executed one, they have yet to discover the value in it.
And, there is value in it, if you provide value.
THERE IS R-O-I IN Y-O-U
LinkedIn Stories offers you a chance to take a deeper dive into who you are, what you do and how you do it. There’s a lot of people out there saying the exact same thing. It’s who you are and how you deliver it that attracts your audience.
It’s not about the message. It’s about the messenger.
ADDING STORIES TO LINKEDIN MAKES SENSE (AND CENTS)
In January 2019, there were 500 million daily active Stories users worldwide, up from 400 million just six months prior to that. It’s growing. And, it’s growing fast. (via Statista)
One of the reasons LinkedIn started exploring the Stories option is because they found that more people felt freer to share things that aren’t permanently in their timeline.
That’s because we’ve created personas for each of our social media accounts. And, they’re all different. Who we are on Facebook is not who we are on LinkedIn, who we are on Instagram is not who we are on Twitter. We’ve put ourselves in a box, which was the basis of a hilarious viral trend from January of this year that was started by no other than Dolly Parton herself.
That was in January. Then, in March—COVID-19 barged in and our lives were turned upside down and those box lines blurred.
With more people working from home, the lines between work life and personal life have blurred. When Lauren Griffiths, a mom of three, looked at her LinkedIn profile picture, the person looking back at her did not reflect her or the time we’re living in now.
She wrote: “Recently, I took a hard look at my LinkedIn profile photo – the woman staring back at me had newly highlighted hair and a fresh cut, a pressed blazer, a hint of a smile that showed just the right amount of teeth to let you know she was serious, but could be lighthearted when needed. I remember standing in my power pose as my husband snapped the photos. We poured through about 80 shots before we found the one that looked perfectly polished. But the person I was exuding then is not always who I am, and certainly not who I am right now.”
With currently more than 777,000 likes and more than 26,000 comments, it struck a chord with LinkedIn users and attracted the attention of “Good Morning America,” as well.
Griffiths ended her post by saying, “I’ve witnessed and read enough on authentic leadership to know that being genuine and vulnerable will get you a lot farther in your career than a glossy headshot.”
And, therein lies the opportunity in Stories that people aren’t seeing. Stories = Authenticity.
I’ll be honest, if I had never gotten brave in Stories, I would have never ventured into TikTok, where I’ve grown a following of 75,000 and 1.5 million likes. And, I would have never jumped on Instagram Reels, Instagram’s TikTok carbon copy, when it was released this past August. Why it matters—reasons like this: An Instagram Reel I posted on a Saturday resulted in me being on the phone with a New York Times best-selling author by Monday.
Every post matters.
LinkedIn Stories is a place to build a personalized connection with your audience, a chance to emerge from the business persona, to take down the professional wall, to show the behind-the-scenes of your day-to-day. What a normal, ordinary day is to you might be a peek behind Oz’s curtain to someone else. It’s an opportunity to provide quick tips, tricks and teachable moments from your day.
A chance for you to position yourself as the expert.
There’s two different types of content:
- LOOK AT ME
- LEARN FROM ME
And, let’s face it: There’s a lot of ‘look at me’ content on LinkedIn.
There’s not a lot of ‘learn from me.’
People buy from people. It’s just that simple.
I spent 20 years in television and when I got out of that bubble, I never understood this B2B, B2C speak in the outside world.
It’s human to human.
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real.”
-Brene Brown
Those that see the opportunity in it will win.
