LinkedIn is Shutting Down LinkedIn Stories from the End of Next Month

It appears that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. LinkedIn is abandoning its LinkedIn Storytelling experiment after Twitter decided to discontinue its social stories initiative "Fleets" last month. As a result, LinkedIn Stories will be phased out in its current form by the end of September. This message is also being sent to Page Admins by LinkedIn.

LinkedIn claims that one of the important takeaways from its year-and-a-half-old Stories project is that:

• Users want their Stories-like content to be viewable on their profile after the 24-hour window has passed.

• Users desire more creative tools on the platform to generate more engaging videos. As a result, these two features will be incorporated into LinkedIn's next video initiative, which will take the place of the Stories offering.

LinkedIn hasn't said much else, but with its recent acquisition of how-to video platform Jumprope, it'll likely be working on more professional showcase video tools for user profiles, giving them another way to present quick insights, skills pointers, and more in a more creative, engaging way. It's perhaps no surprise that LinkedIn Stories hasn't been a success. Most experiments with the feature yielded low reach and click-through rates, and LinkedIn appeared to be increasingly desperate to increase Stories views in recent months, including experimenting with themed Stories curated by LinkedIn's team to fill people's top-of-feed Stories bar.

Nonetheless, some people would have thought it to be a helpful and worthwhile addition, and its loss will force them to reconsider their LinkedIn marketing strategy. LinkedIn also offers Stories advertisements, which extends the reach of paid products even more, which is a strategic concern.

Does this imply that people are fed up with the Stories format as a whole? Probably not. Instagram Stories continues to be quite popular, and Snapchat Stories appear to be gaining traction. However, it appears that there is a limit to how much individuals want to see specific formats, and the option on both Twitter and LinkedIn has always been a question of fit. Still, the trial was probably worthwhile, as LinkedIn now knows for sure that Stories isn't the way to go, and it can refocus on the aspects of the option that did work.

So that's another Story possibility crossed off your list, and another factor to consider in your strategic planning. This is perhaps useful for certain social media managers – however, given what we know, I'd be thinking about what kinds of how-to videos you could make to promote your business and personal brand on LinkedIn, as it appears to be the next, successor innovation on the way.