CBD Resource : Best Practices for LinkedIn Stories With Examples from Top-Performing Brands

Editor's Note: Enjoy this special encore post, which was one of readers' favorites so far in 2021. It was originally published on April 21.

How will you tell your story?

The "Story" has become an extremely popular feature on social networks, tapping the power of authentic storytelling in a compelling and concise format that aligns with the way social media users increasingly like to consume content.

We're thrilled to bring this format to our platform with LinkedIn Stories, opening up a world of new opportunities for brand awareness and engagement in the world's online professional community.

Let's explore how LinkedIn Stories work, and how you can maximize your success with them.

LinkedIn Stories: A Closer Look

In terms of functionality, LinkedIn Stories are similar to “Stories'' on other platforms. They enable members and organizations to share images and short videos of their everyday moments, except in a more professional context.

“Professional context” doesn't mean this content needs to be overly formal or stuffy. To the contrary, LinkedIn Stories provide a more casual format and are great for bringing different dimensions of your brand or personality to life. Stories are perfect for behind-the-scenes glimpses, "day in the life" content, product exclusives, employee spotlights, and more.

With LinkedIn Stories, you can use various interactive elements, including stickers, @mentions, and questions of the day to engage your audience. You can even add a swipe-up link to your Story frames to boost website traffic and drive conversions. The best part is that LinkedIn Stories appear at the top of your audience’s feed, thus amplifying reach and awareness and effectively keeping your brand top of mind.

With Story viewers growing 15x faster than feed content viewers, there’s no better time than now to get started.

LinkedIn Stories Best Practices

In figuring out how you want to tell your story, it helps to have some practical guidance. Read on to find six recommended ways to use this format for maximum impact (with illustrative examples!).

1. Educate Your Audience

LinkedIn Stories are helpful for boosting brand authority with thought leadership content. Offer value to your audience by sharing useful tips, data, and insights from a new blog post, whitepaper, or industry report you’ve published. You can even tag relevant voices and influencers on LinkedIn to reinforce credibility. Make sure you include a swipe-up link at the end of your Story, urging viewers to check out the original content.

Here’s an example of how Adobe used LinkedIn Stories to share insights from their Digital Insights report:

2. Highlight Your Products

While blatantly promotional and sales-y content on LinkedIn Stories may struggle to catch someone’s attention or resonate, there are plenty of fun and creative ways to showcase what you sell. Take a member-first mindset and think about ways to position this content as interesting and useful. Build up buzz around product launches or new feature reveals. Include a swipe-up link to the relevant product page or launch announcement.

Squarespace used LinkedIn Stories to raise awareness of its new “Select” service, and made it easy for users to learn more:

3. Add a Human Touch

From employee milestones to customer success stories, there’s a wide array of content you can share to highlight your brand’s human side. This is crucial for differentiating your company and building stronger relationships with your audience. Don’t forget to @mention relevant employees and customers in your Stories. Sharing details around corporate social responsibility initiatives or other community-focused activities is a great way to grow deeper rapport.

In one shining example, Ernst & Young let their interns take over their LinkedIn Page and post Stories on their behalf. The result was an authentic, behind-the-scenes look of the organization from a relatable perspective.

4. Share Event Updates

Given the timely nature of this ephemeral content, LinkedIn Stories are handy for sharing information about upcoming and ongoing events. Whether you’re organizing a webinar, or a product launch, or planning to stream with LinkedIn Live, you can give your efforts a boost with LinkedIn Stories.

Deloitte Australia used this approach to offer unique content before and during its Tech Fast 50 Australia event:

5. Share Bite-sized Information

Try not to bombard your audience with too much information in a single Story frame. Instead, upload a series of Stories, combining videos, images, and text, into a coherent narrative to help them consume the content at their pace. Include a CTA with a swipe-up link to additional resources as the last Story frame. This is a great way of driving viewers to any new blog posts, videos, e-books, etc. you publish.

In this example from Pfizer, you can see how they make a complex (and urgent) subject simple and digestible, while giving viewers the opportunity to dive in further if they’d like.

6. Find Ways to Interact With Viewers

While members cannot yet react to or comment directly on Page’s Story, there are various ways to boost engagement with your audience through Stories. It could be a fun and engaging way of educating them about relevant topics through a quiz or getting them to ask themselves the question of the day. Again, take an audience-first mindset by asking yourself: “Will this really compel someone to pause and think? Would I want to if I were logging on to scroll my feed?”

Check out this slick pop quiz that Verizon used to encourage engagement:

Tell Your Story on LinkedIn

From thought leadership content to company news and milestones, you can share a broad spectrum of information using LinkedIn Stories. Utilize stickers, @mentions, and swipe ups to boost interactions. When it comes to telling your story on LinkedIn, there have never been more possibilities.

Can’t wait to get started with LinkedIn Stories? Visit this page to download our free best practices guide and examples gallery.

Want more Stories best practices? Subscribe to the LinkedIn Marketing Blog.