Remember back when Clubhouse was the app of the moment, and every other thought leader was declaring that audio social was the next rise to real connection and engagement?

Yeah, it wasn't, but that didn't stop most of the major social apps from jumping on the audio social bandwagon, afraid to lose audience if indeed it was a legitimate, sustainable shift.

LinkedIn was among the last ones, and the platform launched dedicated live audio events in January 2022, which looked pretty much just like Clubhouse in format
But now, just less than two years later, LinkedIn is retiring its dedicated audio events feature, and rolling audio events into its existing live-streaming tools. Which will mean that you will still be able to run audio-only live events, but you'll have to add a static image into the video field, via a third party tool.

Which probably isn't a huge loss but notable for LinkedIn marketers either way.

According to LinkedIn:

We are updating our live event creation experience to combine our Audio Events and LinkedIn Live, unifying those two services into one entrypoint. Starting December 2, 2024, native audio events will no longer be available to create. If you have an audio event scheduled before December 31, 2024, you can run it as normal.". Then if you have an Audio Event scheduled after that date, you must create a new event through LinkedIn Live by December 15, 2024, because the original event will be removed."

So no more live audio chatrooms on LinkedIn, though I'd guess that these were not being used enough for this to be a major impact for your strategy.

It's interesting to note, however, how the latests in tech often precipitate multi-million dollar shifts, which really lead nowhere at all. Meta killed the last of its numerous audio social features at the end of last year and while X continues to plough on with Spaces, that too has become a minor concern within the app.

Though it’s arguably seen the most enduring success with the format, with the real-time news focus of the app better lending itself to live discussion. But it didn’t work on Reddit either, and over time, we’ve seen that sudden wave of enthusiasm for live audio almost all fade out.

Although it was good while it lasted, and it is good to see new trends and shifts pick up some steam, as platforms try to seek alternative means of connectivity.

And Clubhouse is still around. It has nowhere near the same number of users, but it's still chugging along, so this has led to new opportunity in many ways.

But so much less on LinkedIn, so your live audio options are changing in the app.

If this was in your strategy, it's time to update.