LinkedIn launches ‘Stories’ in India

LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, today launched ‘Stories’ in India to help members share everyday professional moments and experiences with their communities more casually, creatively, and authentically. This new feature allows members to publish photos and videos up to 20 seconds long, which will be visible on their profiles for 24 hours.

With the growing importance of a virtually connected world, LinkedIn has launched Stories in India to help members share everyday, casual updates and experiences from their professional lives, start lightweight conversations, and offer a new way to stay connected with their network. Members can share their everyday professional moments such as work-from-home setups, daily routines, work motivations, events, team calls, industry news, and insights quickly and with ease as it does not stay on a member’s permanent profile.

”In a virtually connected world, ‘Stories’ are the virtual water coolers, where members can share their everyday professional moments in a creative and authentic way, and find a new way to stay connected with their networks. Along with the launch of Stories, we have also introduced a host of platform enhancements that offer an inclusive and enjoyable LinkedIn experience. The new look and feel of LinkedIn showcases our commitment to creating an engaging, supportive, diverse, and respectful community, which is at the heart of everything we do at LinkedIn,” says Ashutosh Gupta, India Country Manager, LinkedIn.

Inventive stickers bring visual excitement to LinkedIn Stories, and help members add more creativity to their professional updates. For India, LinkedIn has launched six localized stickers that serve as quirky depictions of the work-life unique to the country. These stickers feature ‘Auto Rickshaw’ the common choice of commute across cities and states; ‘Jugaad’, the colloquial term for innovations or makeshift hacks; ‘Chai-Time’ to signify the quintessential Indian break at work with a masala chai and a biscuit; ‘Cricket’ to show the nation’s love for their favorite sport; ‘Yoga’ meditation sticker to turn distress into de-stress; and ‘India’ written in kitsch design that can double up as a way to highlight your ‘location’. 

Stories allow members to send messages to connections and followers, and “mention” / tag connections in a Story. They can also see who has viewed their Story, increasing engagement and giving insight on activity for your posts. Additionally, features such as ‘Question of the Day’, asks members what they’re working on or how they recharge on their day off, and their Story responses help members start new conversations, acting as ice-breakers. 

The India launch of LinkedIn Stories saw business leaders, stand-up comedians, and other influential voices such as Vani Kola, Kiran Bedi, Rahul Subramanian, and Anny Divya, use the new feature to show their work setup, share productivity tips, celebrate return to work, and revisit happy memories. Their posts demonstrate how the new feature makes it easier to stay connected to communities, inform audiences, and share professional moments.

Extending its commitment to help members build meaningful relationships and be more productive in their professional lives, LinkedIn announced its first major visual redesign in 5 years to better embody the platform’s diverse, inclusive, and trusted community of professionals. Sporting a warm color palette, the new visual identity is warmer, simpler, more modern and more intuitive, allowing for easier navigation and discovery.

The platform also introduced a new, streamlined search experience, which will for the first time introduce a blended search results page with defined recommendations organized by people, jobs, groups, companies, schools, content, LinkedIn Learning courses, and online events. This makes it much easier for members to surface the people, events, groups, and content they want, while helping them reach beyond their immediate network.

To help keep conversations going, the platform has also introduced a variety of new features that allow for richer ways to communicate while also giving members more control over messages and conversations. The new messaging experience also offers video meeting integration, making it easy for members to switch the conversation from chat to face-to-face using Microsoft Teams, Bluejeans by Verizon, or Zoom directly in their LinkedIn message threads.

To know more about LinkedIn’s India Stories launch, read Ashutosh Gupta’s blog. Check out Ryan Roslansky’s blog about LinkedIn’s new look and feel and Kiran Prasad’s blog on the global Stories launch. LinkedIn Stories is now live in India, US, Canada, France, Australia, Brazil, The Netherlands, and UAE.