LinkedIn announced today that it’s rolling out new features for creators that are designed to make it easier to share visual content on the social network. The launch marks LinkedIn’s latest effort toward building out a platform for creating content and courting creators.
In the coming weeks, creators on LinkedIn will be able to add a clickable link directly onto their images and videos to drive traffic to their websites or other resources, regardless of whether they’re on or off LinkedIn. For example, the company notes that creators can use the new feature to link to their most recent newsletters or their personal websites. You can add a clickable link by tapping the “Add a link” icon after creating a new post on mobile with an image or video.
The company is also launching a new Templates feature that is designed to help creators ensure that their text posts will stand out in users’ feeds. The Templates are designed to give text posts a pop of color to make them more visually pleasing and eye-catching for viewers. Creators will be able to access the new Templates in the coming weeks by going to the share box or tapping “Post” on mobile and then selecting “Use a template.” From there, you can choose from numerous customizable backgrounds and fonts, add your own text and hit “Share.” You can even add a clickable link onto templates.
In addition, LinkedIn has starting rolling out “Carousels,” which is a new content format that allows you to mix images and videos when presenting information to your followers in a swipeable format. LinkedIn says users will start seeing carousels in their Feed today. The company plans to tweak the feature and release it more widely later this year.
The launch of the new features comes as LinkedIn says it’s seen a 20% increase year over year in people adding visual content in their posts.
LinkedIn has ramped up efforts to court creators to its platform over the past year and even launched a $25 million creator fund in September 2021. When LinkedIn launched the fund, the idea of starting a fund to incentivize creators to build video for a particular platform wasn’t exactly new, considering platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook had all announced hundreds of millions of dollars in creator funds to bring more original content to their platforms long before LinkedIn.
Although LinkedIn has 830 million users, it houses content that is vastly different from what you find on TikTok and Instagram. However, that hasn’t stopped the platform from trying to court creators and position itself as a home for creating content.
LinkedIn launches a $25M fund for creators, will test Clubhouse-style audio feature in coming weeks
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