Straight answer: No, you cannot post Stories on LinkedIn anymore, because LinkedIn shut the feature down in September 2021 after roughly eighteen months of testing it. If you’re still finding blog posts telling you how to post a LinkedIn Story in 2026, they’re either outdated or written by someone who never checked. What you should do instead is post the formats LinkedIn rewards, which I’ll walk through with real numbers from my own account below.
What LinkedIn Stories were, and why they’re gone
LinkedIn launched Stories in select markets in March 2020, right as the world went into lockdown and everyone suddenly had opinions about working from home. It rolled out more widely through 2020 and looked exactly like you’d expect: vertical, disappearing after 24 hours, sitting in a bar of circles at the top of the app, copied almost frame for frame from Instagram and Snapchat.
Then in September 2021, LinkedIn quietly killed it. The official line was that engagement with Stories didn’t match what they were seeing on other post types, which is corporate speak for “nobody used this.” I remember it clearly because I’d been posting to it two or three times a week and getting views in the double digits while my normal feed posts were reaching thousands. The feature just didn’t fit how people used the platform, and LinkedIn was honest enough to pull the plug rather than keep it limping along the way some networks do.
So if you type “LinkedIn Stories” into a search bar today, you’ll find a mix of very old tutorials, some confused forum threads asking where the feature went, and a handful of newer articles that either haven’t been fact checked or are recycling old content without updating it. That’s the actual state of play.
So can you post stories on LinkedIn right now?
No native ephemeral Stories feature exists on LinkedIn as I write this in 2026. There is no circle of avatars at the top of your feed, no 24 hour disappearing photo or clip option, and no way to bring it back through your settings. What people usually mean when they ask this question falls into a few buckets, and it’s worth untangling them because the confusion is common:
- LinkedIn newsletters – a permanent, subscribable content format where followers get notified when you publish, completely different from disappearing content.
- LinkedIn Live – live video broadcasting that requires approval and streaming software, closer to a webinar than a Story.
- Document posts (carousels) – multi-page PDF style posts that swipe through, which some people confuse with Stories because they’re visual and multi-part.
- Third party scheduling tools – a few social media management platforms still have a “Stories” tab in their dashboard left over from when the feature existed, which throws people off because the tool hasn’t updated its interface.
None of these are the thing that got killed off in 2021, and none of them are coming back as a disappearing format. LinkedIn has shown zero interest in reviving it.
Why LinkedIn Stories failed when everyone assumed they’d win
Here’s the bit most people writing about this skip over: Stories were never going to work on LinkedIn, and that was predictable before LinkedIn even launched them. Every platform in 2019 and 2020 was copying Instagram’s Stories format because it was working brilliantly there, and the herd instinct in social media strategy is to assume a format is universally good rather than checking whether it fits the platform’s actual behaviour.
LinkedIn users don’t open the app the way Instagram or Snapchat users do. People check LinkedIn in short bursts, often once or twice a day, usually with a specific purpose: checking messages, scanning the feed during a commute, looking someone up before a meeting. That’s fundamentally different from the “open the app eleven times a day out of boredom” behaviour that makes Stories work on Instagram. A format built on frequent, casual, low stakes check-ins was dropped onto a platform where people show up infrequently and with intent. It was a mismatch from day one, and I say that having tried the format myself and watched it flop.
This is the same mistake I still see brands make constantly, chasing whatever format is winning on one platform and assuming it’ll translate everywhere. I wrote about a similar dynamic in how Threads has changed since its download peak, where a platform that launched with enormous hype settled into a much smaller, quieter reality once the novelty wore off. Formats and platforms both have a shelf life, and the smart move is checking the actual behaviour of your audience rather than copying what’s trending somewhere else.
What to post on LinkedIn instead (with real numbers)
If you’re on LinkedIn to build an audience or generate business, here’s what moves the needle, based on what I’ve tracked across my own posts over the last couple of years:
- Document posts (carousels). These consistently pull two to three times the engagement of a plain text post for me. A ten slide PDF walking through “5 things I got wrong building my consultancy” will outperform the same content written as a single post almost every time, because people swipe rather than scroll past.
- Native video under two minutes. Not polished, not scripted to death. A phone camera clip of me talking through a client problem gets far more comments than a text post saying the same thing, because it reads as more honest.
- Text posts with a strong first line. LinkedIn only shows the first two or three lines before the “see more” cutoff, so that opening line is doing all the work. If it’s flat, nobody clicks through, no matter how good the rest is.
- Polls, used sparingly. They get visibility because LinkedIn’s algorithm likes the interaction signal, but they wear thin fast if you lean on them every week.
Here’s a simple step-by-step for the format that’s worked best for me, the document post:
- Pick one specific lesson or mistake, not a broad topic. “Why my first client pitch deck failed” beats “marketing tips.”
- Build 8 to 12 slides in Canva or PowerPoint, one point per slide, big text, minimal design.
- Export as a PDF, not images, so LinkedIn renders it as a swipeable document.
- Write a caption with the strongest line first, then post it as a “Document” through the create post option, not a regular image upload.
- Reply to the first few comments within the hour, because early engagement is what LinkedIn’s algorithm uses to decide whether to keep showing it.
None of this requires a disappearing Stories feature. If anything, the permanence works in your favour, because a good document post keeps generating profile views and connection requests for weeks after you post it, something a 24 hour Story could never do even when it existed.
The one exception worth mentioning: LinkedIn Live
If what you want from Stories is real time, in the moment content, LinkedIn Live is the closer equivalent, though it’s a heavier lift. You need to apply for access, use streaming software like StreamYard or Restream, and commit to a set time slot rather than posting casually whenever. It suits event coverage, product launches, or Q&A sessions far better than day to day updates, and the content stays on your profile afterward rather than vanishing, which for a professional audience is usually a plus rather than a downside.
If you’re set on ephemeral, casual style content, post it elsewhere
If the appeal of Stories was the low pressure, casual, behind the scenes feel, that instinct is right, it’s just the wrong platform. Instagram and TikTok still reward that format, and there’s a decent case for repurposing the same raw clip across platforms rather than producing something bespoke for each one. I’ve written before about the mechanics of reposting content between platforms without getting flagged, and the same logic applies in reverse: film once, then decide which platform gets the polished version and which gets the raw one.
LinkedIn is the place for the polished, permanent, “here’s what I learned” version. Instagram and TikTok are the place for the messy, in-the-moment version. Treating LinkedIn like Instagram is why Stories died there in the first place, and it’s why trying to force casual ephemeral content onto a professional network still won’t work even if LinkedIn brought the feature back tomorrow.
What this means for your content strategy
The bigger lesson here isn’t really about Stories, it’s about not building your entire content plan around a feature you don’t control. LinkedIn can and does kill formats with no warning, and anyone who’d built a whole posting habit around Stories in 2021 lost that overnight with zero notice. The same risk applies to any platform-specific feature, which is part of why I’ve moved more of my own strategy toward things I own, like a newsletter, rather than formats that live entirely inside someone else’s app. If you want to see how far that thinking can go, I wrote about building an AI agent to run my newsletter without me, which is the opposite bet to chasing whatever format a platform is pushing this quarter: build something durable instead of something a product team can switch off.
It also connects to a wider point I make with clients constantly, which is that scattering effort across every new format without a plan is not a strategy, it’s busywork. Posting consistently on formats that convert matters far more than being present on every feature LinkedIn has ever shipped. If you’re building content with no clear path from a post to a lead, you’re missing the piece I cover in why a sales funnel matters for your business, because a great LinkedIn post that goes nowhere afterward is just noise, however good the engagement numbers look.
And if LinkedIn posting alone isn’t building the visibility you need, it’s worth widening the net rather than posting harder into a platform that’s plateaued for you. Guest posting on established sites still works for building authority and backlinks in a way a single LinkedIn post never will, and I’ve put together a real list of sites that accept guest posts with actual pay rates if that’s a route you haven’t tried yet.
Frequently asked questions
Does LinkedIn have a Stories feature in 2026?
No. LinkedIn tested Stories from March 2020 and discontinued the feature completely in September 2021, citing low engagement compared to other post types, and it has not been brought back since.
Why did LinkedIn get rid of Stories?
LinkedIn said engagement with Stories didn’t match what they saw on standard posts, and the underlying reason was a mismatch between the format and how people use LinkedIn, in short, infrequent, task-focused sessions rather than the casual, frequent app-opening that makes disappearing content work on Instagram.
What should I post on LinkedIn instead of Stories?
Document posts (multi-slide PDF carousels), short native video under two minutes, and text posts with a strong opening line consistently outperform other formats, with carousel posts typically pulling two to three times more engagement than a plain text post in my own posting history.
Can I still find old LinkedIn Stories content or tutorials?
You may find outdated blog posts and screenshots referencing the old feature, but they’re describing something that no longer exists in the app. Any current tutorial claiming to show you how to post a LinkedIn Story should be treated as out of date.
