LinkedIn’s expanding its top-of-feed news banner to more regions, as it looks to drive more topical engagement within the app.
Launched earlier this year in selected markets, LinkedIn’s news banner provides a rotating headline summary of trending news stories of the day, as chosen by LinkedIn’s editorial team. Tap on any headline and you’ll be taken to a listing of relevant articles and LinkedIn posts about that topic, so you can engage with other LinkedIn members about the news of the day.
That, ideally, will get more LinkedIn users sharing their thoughts about key business news, helping them build their LinkedIn presence, while also driving more engagement in the app.
And apparently, it is working, with LinkedIn bringing its news banner test to more regions.
As per LinkedIn:
“The LinkedIn News banner is currently only available to members in the U.S., Canada, India, the U.K., and Australia.”
When we first reported on this in January, the news banner was only available in the first three regions mentioned, but now, LinkedIn’s bringing it to U.K. and Australian users as well.
Which will mean that more users will be able to stay updated on the latest business news, and share their thoughts on the same within their respective LinkedIn networks.
It seems like a pretty smart activation for LinkedIn, with users also able to close down the news banner at any time, by tapping on the “x”. That’ll shut it down for 24 hours, removing the banner from view if you find it distracting.
LinkedIn says that it’s seen big increases in engagement of late, with the changes at X sparking a notable shift in professional communities and networks online.
Clearly, LinkedIn’s benefiting from such, while it’s also seeing big increases in video engagement in the app.
The news banner could be a means to tap into both, highlighting relevant news stories above the main feed, as opposed to relying on LinkedIn’s algorithm to show you updates in real time. Because it won’t. LinkedIn’s feed algorithm is notorious for showing you weeks-old updates, in order to maximize in-network interactions and awareness.
Which may be good for general updates, but it’s not so great for real-time news, and as such, the banner could play an important role in driving topical discussion.
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