Remember when Clubhouse was the app of the moment, and every other thought leader was proclaiming the rise of audio social as a return to real connection and engagement?
Yeah, it wasn’t, but that didn’t stop most of the major social apps from jumping aboard the audio social trend, in fear of losing audience if indeed it was a legitimate, sustainable shift.
LinkedIn was one of them, with the platform rolling out dedicated live audio events in January 2022, which looked very much like Clubhouse in format:
But now, less than two years later, LinkedIn is retiring its dedicated audio events option, and rolling audio events into its existing live-streaming tools. Which will mean that you can still run audio-only live events, but you’ll need to add a static image into the video field, via a third party tool.
Which is probably not a big loss, but notable for LinkedIn marketers either way.
As per LinkedIn:
“We are updating our live event creation experience, bringing together our Audio Events and LinkedIn Live into a single entrypoint. From December 2, 2024, the creation of native Audio Events will no longer be available. If you have an Audio Event scheduled before December 31, 2024, you can host it as usual. If you have an Audio Event scheduled after that date, you must create a new event through LinkedIn Live by December 15, 2024, as 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 is interesting, though, to see how tech trends can spark multi-million dollar shifts, that ultimately lead to nowhere. Meta shut down that last of its various audio social elements early last year, and while X is still pushing on with Spaces, that too has become a minor consideration in 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.
Though it was good while it lasted, and it’s good to see new trends and shifts gain traction, as platforms try to seek out alternative ways to connect.
And Clubhouse is still going. It doesn’t have anywhere near as many users, but it’s still chugging along, so this has led to new opportunity in many ways.
But on LinkedIn, not so much, so your live audio options are changing in the app.
If this was part of your strategy, time to update.