LinkedIn is testing a new TikTok-style short-form video stream, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday. With this new test, LinkedIn joins several other popular apps that have launched their own short-form video streams following TikTok’s rise in popularity, including Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Netflix.
The food was first Austin Null spotted, director of strategy at an influencer firm called McKinney. Null posted a short demo on LinkedIn showing off the new feed, which is located in the app’s navigation bar under a new “Videos” tab. Once you hit the New Video button, you’ll enter a vertical feed of short videos that you can swipe through. You can like a video, leave a comment or share it with others. The company did not share details about how the feed determines which videos will be shown to users.
The new addition is similar to the short-form vertical video streams you see on other apps, but while those streams include a variety of content, from comedy to cooking videos, LinkedIn’s stream is obviously focused on career and professionalism. While you’ve always been able to post videos on LinkedIn, the new dedicated feed is designed to drive engagement and discovery on the platform by presenting bite-sized videos that users can quickly scroll through.
MicrosoftLinkedIn-owned LinkedIn says video is becoming one of its users’ preferred formats for learning from professionals and experts, so it’s testing a new way for users to discover relevant videos. The feature is in early testing, so most people won’t have access to it yet.
The launch of the new feature comes as many creators have built a significant following on TikTok for sharing advice and experiences on topics such as career development, job hunting and professional development. The new LinkedIn feed would give creators a new place to share their video content and potentially reach more viewers. It’s possible that LinkedIn will monetize the stream at some point in the future to entice creators to post their video content to the app.
While the feature presents new opportunities for creators, some users may not see the new stream as a welcome addition to the app, as they may feel overwhelmed by the many different short-form video streams in popular apps.
