Can Caribbean Businesses Use LinkedIn Stories For Better Engagement?

Following in the footsteps of Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn is bringing LinkedIn Stories to its users.

This year, exclusive access to the popular social media feature was given to LinkedIn members in Brazil, France, Australia, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after internal testing. So what is the outlook for LinkedIn? And will Caribbean businesses particularly young professionals(the millennials)capitalize on this new and trendy feature?

This LinkedIn Stories feature which is accessible via LinkedIn mobile app will have a different tone from Stories on other social media. This new tool will cater to a professional community with the concept that it will generate more interest, engagement and purpose. But how engaging is the Stories feature?

Instagram Stories Are Really Popular

Instagram Stories feature attracts 500 million Instagrammers daily since launching in August 2016. Facebook, the parent company also introduced this feature about a year later. Despite some early resistance, Facebook Stories are here to stay. Everyone can admit that with Facebook acquiring Instagram, there are advantages to using the feature on that platform especially for Instagram Influencers.

Few Caribbean Content Creators Globally

While on the topic of influencers, there is sad news. The Caribbean Community which is home to 44.42 million people is hardly making a dent as content creators.

Yet, there is a huge Caribbean audience particularly on LinkedIn with the largest professional network located in The Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

Caribbean companies cannot miss this money making opportunity to market themselves. They can attract over a hundred thousand clients in the region and beyond using captivating content but this will require a clear content strategy.

What is the Best Story Engagement Strategy? Photo vs Video

The Stories feature is all about the visual: photos and videos. Marketers have found while both have their advantages, videos boost engagement. This is so because videos generate comments while photos attract reactions(likes). If Caribbean brands on LinkedIn are going to see the added value of Stories on the platform, Stock photos and videos will not produce high engagement rates. People like to see people and marketers will need to create authentic and visceral content in LinkedIn Stories.

Stories Give You More Online Visibility

The rollout of LinkedIn Stories can only result in better visuals for personal accomplishments, business news and professional expertise and prime real estate for brands to launch campaigns, advertise events, Q&As and start conversations about new products, services and community projects for the span of 24 hours.

LinkedIn has a reported 645 million global users. Professional marketers of B2B and B2C brands will gladly create social media strategies around this new feature.

But how will a professional website, LinkedIn tailor this new feature to its unique users? How can it still be corporate but engaging, entertaining and “fun”? Story Creators will need to conceptualize the perfect image and create impactful video to engage followers through diversity and innovation. For the biggest and most successful publishers on Snapchat and Instagram, they share moments that capture the emotions of its followers and fans. So what are LinkedIn members getting with this new feature?

Features of LinkedIn Stories

LinkedIn Members Will Have the Ability to

• Share Stories With Other LinkedIn Members Through LinkedIn Messaging

• Access Past Stories Through Account Data

• Block Followers and Connections From Seeing Stories

• LinkedIn Stories Can Be Deleted and A New One Created (But You Cannot Edit Stories)

LinkedIn is One of A Kind

There is one important fact to remember, there is no platform like LinkedIn.

But LinkedIn knows it must improve the user experience. All new features should take into consideration the overall brand identity and how it can be maintained. The website is known for its career, employment and recruitment opportunities not entertainment and fun. This being said, LinkedIn Stories should be just as special.

New Social Media Features Come and Go

LinkedIn has launched over 20 different new features in 2019 alone. Some of them have been embraced while others are getting mixed reactions. In 2018, LinkedIn brought “Student Voices”, a feature that was exclusively for US college students.

In this competitive technological environment, updates to features do not happen annually but monthly and with this new feature, we, the LinkedIn users can expect that this new addition could increase engagement significantly on the platform.

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