LinkedIn has roll out New Feature: LinkedIn Stories

If you’ve been on LinkedIn recently, you may have noticed several new updates. The website has a new design, and updated search and messenger functions, among other things. 

But one of the most notable features is the addition of “LinkedIn stories” — a tool that lets you, much like Instagram or Snapchat, post minute-by-minute updates about your life. 

LinkedIn stories give job seekers and experts a new way to post on the app in a less permanent way (stories are only available for 24 hours). In an official blog post about the update, LinkedIn said the tool should be used to share “lightweight conversations related to your work-life.”

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Adding stories to the world’s largest professional social network makes sense. It allows the everyday person to post casual updates about their career life and gives career coaches and experts a platform to share spontaneous advice and stories for job seekers. 

But even though the tool mimics the more relaxed experience of other social media outlets, in particular Instagram, you shouldn’t treat it the same way. 

In the blog post, LinkedIn said users should post experiences from the work day, questions for your network, insights on timely breaking news, and tips on how to use a certain tool or develop a new skill. It’s safe to assume you should avoid posting updates about what you ate for breakfast that day, or a family vacation. 

Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of “Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job,” previously told Business Insider that LinkedIn should never be used to trash-talk your boss or a previous employer. It also isn’t a place to post personal photos and status updates about your life. 

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“Consider this as a living résumé or a living business card,” she said. “If you were in an networking event and you were handing out your business card, it wouldn’t be a photo from your family album.”

For the most part, this advice should be common sense. But we’ve all come across someone who overshares on their LinkedIn profile. While no one can tell you exactly how to post on your profile, you probably shouldn’t be posting anything you wouldn’t be comfortable with your boss reading. 

As the careers editor at Business Insider, for example, I might use my story to post a link to a relevant article that I think job seekers would find useful or some thoughts on a trending topic in the news. 

Stories should, above all, start a conversation, LinkedIn said. And at a time when millions are unemployed and looking for jobs, there’s an urgent need to have more honest discussions about how to be successful at work.

Business Insider

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