Tag: Stories

LinkedIn has given its platform a new, fresh update, while it’s also announced the global rollout of LinkedIn Stories after trying it out in selected nations over the past five months.

First off, on LinkedIn’s new look – as you can see in this screenshot, the new LinkedIn looks brighter, with a pastel-type color scheme on a gray and white background – and less blue overall.

As explained by LinkedIn:

“Two years ago, our brand evolved to better reflect LinkedIn’s community of members and organizations that come together to help, support, and inspire one another. Now, we’re bringing the next chapter of this brand evolution to life across our platform with an entirely new look and feel that embodies our diverse, inclusive, warm and welcoming community.”

The update is mostly aesthetic, but LinkedIn’s also added a range of new features and tweaks to coincide with the new format.

The main addition is the global rollout of LinkedIn Stories.

As noted, LinkedIn has been testing Stories over the last few months, with users in Brazil, the Netherlands, Australia, UAE and France able to access to option. The roll-out of LinkedIn Stories seemed to slow of late, with Australia being the last region to get access back in June, but according to LinkedIn, user reception for Stories has been ‘amazing to see’.

Now, everyone will be able to try it out – and while it hasn’t become a major function of note as yet, the broader audience could give Stories a boost. Stories will be rolling out to Canadian and US users from this week, with all other regions to come shortly.

Along with the roll-out of Stories, LinkedIn’s also revamped its search process to incorporate more of its functions into your search matches. 

“Before, search was about finding people or jobs but now, you’ll have one blended search experience to easily find jobs, people, courses, groups, content and more. For example, if you’re searching for “Java,” you’ll see what’s new to learn that skill, jobs that are being hired for, relevant groups to join so you can connect with others and people you might know who have Java as a skill.”

LinkedIn’s also making searches more personalized, with results from your connections more likely to show up, and it’s added keyword filters on mobile, which, up till now, has only been available n the web version.

LinkedIn’s also incorporating the capability to launch a video meeting via a LinkedIn message, with integrations for Microsoft Teams, Bluejeans and Zoom.

It’s also adding some other new messaging tricks, like editing functionality for sent messages:

“If you make a mistake in a message, you can now edit/delete a sent message.”

There’s also a new bulk actions option in your message stream, so you can delete or archive your messages all at once, and new reactions within message threads.

Quick reactions to messages has become a fairly common functionality, so it makes sense to LinkedIn to add it in, aligning with general usage trends. 

These are some interesting functions and tools, which add to the ways in which you can connect and communicate on the platform. And the new look does add something different, maybe removing some of the corporate stuffiness that’s lingered on the platform and giving it a new sense of life.

LinkedIn’s rolling out these new features from today, so if you’re not seeing them yet, you will soon.   

After working on the format over the last year and a bit, Pinterest has now announced a full beta launch of Story Pins, which looks to tap into the social Stories trend with a platform-unique approach.

As explained by Pinterest:

“Story Pins is an all new type of Pin and publishing option that gives creators a way to tell dynamic and visual stories with videos, voiceover and image and text overlay. We’re making it easier for creators who are eager to share their talent, passions and creativity to flow back directly into Pinterest without the need for a website. For Pinners, this means the ideas within a Pin will be more engaging and actionable.”

As you can see in the above screenshots, the format of Story Pins is similar to other Stories options, with a full-screen, swipeable feed of Stories frames. 

The difference here is that these are contained within a Pin, as opposed to a separate Pinterest Stories feed, while Story Pins also don’t disappear after 24 hours. 

“Story Pins can be saved to boards for later, and will be discoverable over time. They’ll also be distributed across home feed, search results and places like the Today tab, and benefit from the visual discovery engine that matches new ideas to people with relevant interests and tastes.”

So it’s like Stories in spirit, but for practical purposes, it’s not quite the same. Still, it’ll provide a way to re-create the Stories experience within Pinterest – which, given the popularity of the Stories format, could be a good way to connect with your on-platform audience.

Story Pins will initially only be available to selected creators in the US, with more regions to follow in the coming months. Creators interested in learning more about Story Pins can sign up here. 

In addition to this, Pinterest is also updating its creator profiles, with a new display format and updated contact options.

“Pinners can also react to the ideas they discover from their favorite creators with a range of positive reactions like “Great idea,” “Love,” “Wow,” and “Thanks” to provide feedback to creators.” 

The reactions are not entirely new – Pinterest has been testing them for some time, and they’ve been available for most users in some surfaces. But now, they’ll be more widely available on posts, adding another way to interact with Pin content.

Pinterest’s also adding a new Engagement tab for creators, where they can manage their Pin activity on a single tab.

While it’s also launching a redesigned Analytics dashboard, which will display a detailed view of how content is performing.

These are some helpful options, and with Pinterest seeing significant growth amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, these tools will provide more ways to both connect and maximize engagement, based on more in-depth, specific stats.

And while it may feel a bit strange having Stories on every platform, the data shows that Stories has become a key content format, like the news feed before it. As such, it makes sense for all platforms to align with audience trends, and provide more options to help people connect in the ways they’re becoming habitually accustomed.

You can read more about Story Pins here.