What do LinkedIn and Twitter share in common? Both rolled out the ephemeral story feature, which was rather transitory. LinkedIn is announced that it would be suspending the Stories feature on September 30 and working on another method for adding short-form videos to the site.

The company pre-announced the change to warn advertisers who may already have bought ads that will run between Stories. Those will instead go to the LinkedIn feed, but users who promoted or sponsored Stores directly from their page will have to recreate them.

LinkedIn launched Stories in September, roughly when Twitter rolled out Fleets to every user, before allowing that feature to fade away. It was part of a broader web and mobile redesign that also integrated with Zoom, BlueJeans, and Teams to keep professionals connected while commuting to the home office. But temporary posts didn't work on LinkedIn, at least not according to the company.

Fleet your final Fleet — the Twitter feature disappears today

In building Stories, we had assumed people wouldn't want informal videos associated with their profile, and that ephemerality would reduce barriers that people feel about posting," wrote LinkedIn's Senior Director of Product Liz Li in a blog post today. "Turns out, you want to create lasting videos that tell your professional story in a more personal way and that showcase both your personality and expertise.".

Li also said that "users want more creative tools to make engaging videos." Although Stories offered stickers and prompts, users wanted more creative functionality.

If LinkedIn does manage to produce a short-form video feature, then it will be akin to other networks that have had to produce their own versions of TikTok, including Snapchat and Instagram. Sure, the majority of users probably do not post the same sorts of things on LinkedIn as they do on their social media accounts, but there are some quite well-known TikTokers already posting career advice, interview tips, and resume hints. Perhaps then LinkedIn's pivot to video won't be all that strange after all.