After it was spotted in testing back in September, LinkedIn has now officially launched the capacity to add links into your LinkedIn Stories – though it’s not available to all users at this stage.
As you can see in these screenshots, posted by social media expert Matt Navarra, the new option enables you to add a ‘See more’ prompt to your LinkedIn Stories, which will link through to a URL of your choosing. You can add a URL via a new ‘link’ icon in your Stories options, at the top right of the composer screen.
Viewers can then access the link by swiping up on the screen, similar to the same option in other Stories tools.
You have the option to preview and edit your link before publishing, and while Navarra also notes that users will have access to link click information in their Stories insights.
But there is a fairly significant catch, at least in terms of usage from your personal LinkedIn profile.
As per LinkedIn, the ‘swipe up’ feature for LinkedIn Stories is only currently available to
- LinkedIn Pages.
- Individual members who have at least 5,000 connections or followers and the Follow button as the primary action on their profile (instead of Connect).
LinkedIn added the option to switch your profile CTA from ‘Connect’ to ‘Follow” back in 2018, as a means to help users build audience on the platform, as opposed to having to add people you don’t know into your professional network. LinkedIn’s now made that a requirement – at this stage – for the swipe up stories links, while the 5,000 connections mark will put it beyond the reach of many individual users (as a related note, LinkedIn’s personal network limit is 30,000 first degree connections).
But there’s likely more benefit for your brand stories anyway, and according to LinkedIn, all Company Pages will be able to add URLs to their LinkedIn Stories. I checked the SMT account and we don’t have the functionality as yet, but it is listed on LinkedIn’s Help platform as being available now, so it’s likely on the way soon.
The jury’s still out on whether Stories fit on LinkedIn or not. Really, LinkedIn is looking to align with emerging content behaviors, so even if Stories feels like a bit of an odd fit at present, it’s the preferred platform of younger users (over the traditional news feed), so it could be more relevant over time, as opposed to being immediately critical.
It’s likely worth experimenting with either way, especially if you already have an active, engaged LinkedIn presence. And with the option to add links, it could be another way to drive traffic, which is always worth testing.
