*taps mic* Are you listening?

LinkedIn allows creators and brands to set up aptly named Audio Events on the platform similar to X/Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse. With the audio feature, you can live-stream interactive conversations with your LinkedIn audience — and beyond.

LinkedIn Audio Events offer a unique way to engage with your professional network in real-time, providing opportunities for meaningful discussions, knowledge sharing, and community building.

Whether you’re creating space for your community to speak on relevant topics or giving time to your audience to connect more deeply, LinkedIn Audio Events provides a versatile and effective medium. 

In this article, we cover everything you need to know about LinkedIn Audio Events, from setting them up to best practices for hosting and promoting them.

What are LinkedIn Audio Events?

The LinkedIn Audio Events feature allows creators and brands to do exactly what it sounds like — host audio-only events. This functionality opens up new possibilities for engaging with your audience in a dynamic and interactive way without the need for video.

Using this feature, LinkedIn users can host virtual events that last anywhere  from 15 minutes to 3 hours. During these events, participants can join, listen, and actively contribute to the conversations, creating a lively and engaging environment. Additionally, thes events support panel discussions, enabling multiple experts to co-host and share their insights simultaneously.

Whether you’re a brand, creator, or individual growing your personal brand, this feature allows you to open up to more professional connections, share valuable knowledge, and spark meaningful conversations within your industry.

Why you should host a LinkedIn Audio Event

Thanks to LinkedIn’s clear focus on the professional community, there’s a clear audience and expected return on investment with Audio Events. 

In addition to this clear benefit, here are some other reasons you should consider hosting LinkedIn Audio Events:

• Engage your audience: Go beyond text and video to live conversations that allow your audience to engage with you on a different level than pre-determined content.
• Host talks from anywhere: The lack of emphasis on video makes LinkedIn Audio Events more appealing for casual conversations in a professional setting.
• Inspire community: Attendees can engage with others and follow anyone who interests them. Jayde Powell, an experienced Audio Events creator, highlights this as a specific benefit of the feature (more on this below).

How to set up a LinkedIn Audio Event

To set up a new event page:

1. On your LinkedIn homepage, check the left side of your screen for the Events section. 
2. Tap the + icon 

3. Upload a cover image

4. Under the Event format box, choose Audio Event.

5. Type in the event details: title, details, date, time, and description. 

6. Invite co-hosts if you have any. Make sure they’ve agreed to speak on the panel!
7. Click Next to go to the posting window. Here, you can share as much detail as possible about your event to your feed to let your audience know about your upcoming event.

8. Click Post!

Case study inspiration for your next Audio Event

If you’re looking for inspiration to set up your LinkedIn Audio Event, look no further than #CreatorTeaTalk with Jayde Powell.

Jayde runs an event series called Creator Tea Talk that holds valuable conversations about the creator economy. 

Her strategy involves basing episodes around cultural conversations combined with evergreen topics for creators.

The sessions are usually well-attended, with an average of 100+ attendees per session, and vary between solo Q&A-oriented discussions and panels.

Tips and best practices for hosting a successful event on LinkedIn

Hosting a successful LinkedIn Audio Event may seem simple on the surface, but requires thoughtful planning and execution. 

Here are some essential tips to ensure your event is engaging and impactful:

1. Plan ahead: Outline your topics and key points to ensure a smooth flow. Preparing a detailed agenda will help you stay on track and cover all the important aspects of your discussion. Audio Events have a time limit of 3 hours, so make sure to allocate time for Q&A sessions to address audience questions. 
2. Test the feature: Conduct a test run before the actual event to identify and fix any potential technical issues. And during the event itself, jave a team member or a co-host ready to handle technical issues, such as connectivity problems or audio issues, allowing you to focus on the content.
3. Promote early: Use LinkedIn posts and other social media channels to build anticipation for your event. Share teasers, key topics, and speaker information to generate interest. Consider creating an event page on LinkedIn to provide a central place for attendees to RSVP and get updates.
4. Engage with attendees: Encourage questions and interactions to foster a sense of community and active participation. Start with an icebreaker or a thought-provoking question to get the conversation going. During the event, regularly invite participants to share their thoughts, ask questions, and provide feedback. 
5. Repurpose your sessions: After the event, consider sharing the recording on other platforms – especially as a podcast. This extends the life and reach of the valuable advice shared in any given session. Unfortunately, there’s no functionality to record your events, but you can use a third-party application to record and re-share your audio. And regardless if you use a recording or not, you can always refer to it to create social content or draft key takeaways from the event to reinforce the value provided. 

LinkedIn Audio Events FAQs

How do I invite attendees to my LinkedIn Audio Event?

Inviting attendees to your LinkedIn Audio Event is straightforward. Once you’ve created your event, LinkedIn provides several options to ensure your event reaches a broad audience. 

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Use the “Invite Connections” button on your event page to directly invite people from your LinkedIn network.
2. Post the event link in your LinkedIn feed and other social media platforms to increase visibility. Encourage your network to share it as well.

Can I record my LinkedIn Audio Event for later use?

As of now, LinkedIn does not provide a built-in feature to record Audio Events directly through the platform. However, you can use external recording tools or devices to capture the audio. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Use a second phone or a digital recorder to capture the event.
2. Use screen-recording software. If you’re running the session through your computer, apps like OBS Studio, Descript, or Cleanshot can record it.
3. Edit the recorded audio and create visual elements like audiograms or summaries before sharing it on other platforms to repurpose the content​​.

What equipment do I need to host an Audio Event?

To host a LinkedIn Audio Event, you don’t need much specialized equipment. Here’s a list of basic requirements:

1. Ensure you have a stable and fast internet connection to avoid disruptions.
2. A good quality microphone is essential to ensure clear audio. USB microphones like the Blue Yeti are popular choices.
3. Use headphones to prevent feedback and echo during the event.
4. Choose a quiet location to minimize background noise and distractions​.

If you‘re a business owner looking to build your start-up from the ground up, you’ve likely read plenty of blogs looking for advice on marketing your business—but I‘m guessing there’s sometimes been a frustrating lack of resources for your particular challenges.

Social media users are facing some pretty big challenges today. They’re frustrated by being at the mercy of changeable algorithms or having their data sold to the highest bidder.

And the idea that, should a platform move in a direction they don’t like (as is the case with some disillusioned folks on X/Twitter) or disappear from the market completely (which would happen in the case of the U.S. TikTok ban), leaving the network means abandoning everything they’ve worked so hard to build there. 

Content, poof. Audience, bye-bye.

But with all the bad comes so much good: the ability to share your life and work with billions of users all over the world, an outlet for creative expression, the possibility of monetizing your passion, and, perhaps, the most important of all: the ability to share and connect with family and friends.

Most social media users — especially those leveraging the networks to boost visibility for themselves, their businesses, or their work — accept that the good of social media goes hand-in-hand with the bad. 

But what if there was an alternative? 

As it happens, there are several. 

A wave of new social media platforms has swept onto the market in recent months, offering solutions to many of the problems I’ve mentioned above. They’re federated, decentralized, and growing fast. 

But what exactly is decentralized social media? Could users find the community they’re looking for? Can creators gain traction there? And can it realistically challenge the centralized giants that dominate the current landscape? 

Let’s take a closer look. 

While it might feel like it burst onto the scene in 2023/24, decentralized social media isn’t all that new. 

The first decentralized platform, Diaspora, launched back in 2010. It promises users freedom, privacy, and control of their own data. Despite initial excitement and a successful crowdfunding campaign, Diaspora struggled to gain mainstream traction. Their platform still exists and currently has around 850,000 users. 

In 2016, Mastodon, an open-source and decentralized microblogging platform, was launched. This was closely followed by Steemit, Pixelfed, Lens Protocol, and several others.

Like Diaspora, these networks intially struggled to gain traction — until now. The advent of blockchain technology and growing disillusionment with traditional social networks have reignited interest in decentralization. 

2023 in particular saw a steep rise in interest in decentralized social media options — and a much talked about phenomenon called the fediverse. 

And, rather than sputtering and lying dormant, these platforms and new ones like them are slowly, steadily (and sometimes in great spurts that correlate to changes on mainstream platforms) growing their user bases.

Mastodon, Pixelfed (an Instagram alternative), PeerTube (a YouTube alternative), and an ever-growing ecosystem are built with an open protocol called ActivityPub. This connection makes them interoperable (read: able to talk to each other). All platforms built with ActivityPub are considered to be part of the fediverse (federation + universe).

And, according to David Pierce, The Verge’s Editor-at-Large, ActivityPub is worth getting excited about. “It’s an old standard based on even older ideas about a fundamentally different structure for social networking, one that’s much more like email or old-school web chat than any of the platforms we use now.”

“It’s governed by open protocols, not closed platforms. It aims to give control back to users and to make sure that the social web is bigger than any single company.” 

Even Meta’s Threads have plugged into the fediverse, though they themselves aren’t decentralized (more on this to come). 

Another key player in the decentralized social movement, Bluesky, was launched in 2021. Interestingly, Bluesky has Twitter to thank for its inception — work on the platform started in 2019, when former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the company was funding a small team of researchers to build an “open and decentralized standard for social media.”

“There are MANY challenges to make this work that Twitter would feel right becoming a client of this standard,” Dorsey tweeted at the time. “Which is why the work must be done transparently in the open, not owned by any single private corporation, furthering the open and decentralized principles of the internet.”

That work was fully realized in Bluesky, a network that bears a striking resemblance to a pre-Elon Musk Twitter, and an open protocol to rival ActivityPub, AT Protocol. 

This makes things a little complicated, so bear with me: Even though Bluesky is decentralized and aligns philosophically with many of the fediverse ideals, Bluesky is not part of the fediverse because it isn’t interoperable with ActivityPub platforms like Mastodon. 

Unlike the major networks, decentralized social media is not owned and controlled by one colossal tech giant. Instead of data being controlled by a single company, it is distributed across a network of computers, often run by individual users or independent organizations. 

This means there is no single point of control or failure, which, in theory, boosts privacy and reduces the risk of censorship. It’s like having your cake, eating it, and then realizing your cake can’t be stolen because it’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

The benefits of decentralization

1. Data ownership and privacy: Users retain control over their data, deciding what to share and with whom. This contrasts sharply with centralized platforms that often monetize user data. 
2. Censorship resistance: With no central authority to dictate content rules, decentralized platforms can be more resistant to censorship. This is particularly appealing in regions with restrictive regimes. 
3. Community governance: Decisions about platform changes and policies can be made through democratic processes involving the community rather than top-down directives from corporate executives. 

Buffer founder and CEO Joel Gascoigne likens the movement to return to the open web of the 1990s. “The Internet was built upon open standards — HTTP, URL, TCP/IP, DNS, HTML. A vast number of valuable internet businesses have been built on these ‘shoulders of giants,’” he says.

“ActivityPub and AT Protocol are built with open standards philosophies, and could similarly enable a new playground of innovation, with openness, ownership, and interoperability at their core.”

“Open standards in social media could be as powerful as open standards have been for direct and private communication (email). What I find exciting about the development of these open standards, and more importantly, the adoption of them and the traction of social networks which support them, is that they can bring forth a new era of open standards for the web.”

David Pierce paints a beautiful picture of exactly what this could mean if ActivityPub or AT Protocol were to take off:

“I’m convinced we’ll be better off with a hundred different apps for Snapchat or Instagram or X instead of just one, a dozen companies competing to build the best moderation tools, and an app store filled with different ways for me to follow and be followed by other people on the internet. 

“It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere and everywhere.”

A paradigm shift for creators

Creators will likely be skeptical of these new networks, and understandably so. Follower count is still currency, especially if you’re looking to monetize. It makes sense to choose your primary platform based on the largest potential audience you can reach.

TikTok, for example, with its ever-growing monthly active user count of 1.5 billion, is particularly appealing — but the risk of placing all your eggs in that basket shouldn’t be ignored. If the ban goes ahead and the platform is removed from U.S. app stores, even creators outside the region could lose hundreds of thousands of followers, not to mention all their content. 

The promise of decentralized networks, if they live up to their vision, means your audience, no matter where it lives, is yours. Tech experts often liken it to email — even if you leave Gmail, you’ll still have access to all your contacts there. Your eggs are in many baskets. If you abandon one, there are others. 

This new reality could mean a powerful mindset shift for creators, Joel points out. “Rather than thinking of yourself as, say, an Instagram creator, a YouTube creator, or LinkedIn creator, you’re an image creator, a video creator, a writer. It’s an empowering paradigm shift that means your content is always yours, whatever audience you build with that work belongs to you.”

It’s worth pointing out, he adds, that there’s no better time to get active on a network than when it experiences its initial spike in interest. “Right now is a very specific moment in time because there’s an opportunity to be part of multiple new social networks that are growing rapidly,” he says. “Getting in on the ground floor is a huge benefit.”

For those wary of adding yet another platform to their social media stack, it’s worth noting that social media management tools that allow for crossposting (like Buffer) do streamline this process a great deal. Posts for LinkedIn, for example, can be easily converted to a simpler thread that might work on Threads or Bluesky. 

In completely anecdotal terms, these decentralized networks tend to be more focused on community and discussion rather than the attention economy that has emerged on mainstream platforms in recent years. 

With platforms like Bluesky offering the ability to create your own algorithm and Mastodon doing away with them completely, there’s less of a sense of “playing the game” to have a real impact on your social media content, which has been necessary for so many brands and creators to gain visibility for their work. 

Of course, building up an audience (or, in this case, community) is still important for many, but engaging meaningfully with comments or even weighing in on someone else’s content can be just as powerful for getting noticed as creating a jaw-dropping video. 

Despite these obvious advantages, decentralized social media has some serious mountains to climb. 

The biggest problem? Finding users. While these networks are growing fast, a couple of million users is nothing on the colosses that are Facebook (over 3 billion monthly active users), YouTube (2.5 billion), and Instagram (2 billion). 

Bluesky has 6 million users, around 1.1 million of whom are active monthly. Mastodon has 7.4 million users (in total; I couldn’t find any MAU stats), PeerTube has 356K, and Pixelfed 255K. FediDB reports that there are 19 million ActivityPub users. It’s a lot, but not near tipping point. 

Network effects are crucial for social media success — people go where their friends are. Since the majority of social media users are more concerned with keeping up with their favorite brands and friends, and most of them have yet to migrate, the lure of these networks is not enough for most users. 

Usability is another issue. Decentralized platforms tend to require more technical know-how, making them less accessible to the average user. Despite Mastodon’s success, it’s a tricky platform to get to grips with. It’s worth noting that Bluseky is actively tackling this with a huge focus on the easy-to-understand interface and features like starter packs, which users can create themselves to help onboard others. 

Additionally, while platforms like Bluesky are implementing user-lead safety controls, the lack of centralized moderation can lead to the proliferation of harmful content, posing a risk to user safety and platform reputation. 

The future is hybrid… for now

Given these challenges, it’s unlikely that decentralized social media will completely replace mainstream platforms in the near future — though after months of innovation and steady growth, it seems unlikely they’ll go anywhere. 

What seems far more likely is that we’ll move towards more of a hybrid system of mainstream platforms and decentralized ones, with the latter seeing a noticeable boost every time an older platform changes their algorithm or makes changes that ruffle feathers. 

Additionally, niche communities and specific use cases may thrive on decentralized platforms, offering users alternatives without requiring a complete abandonment of centralized networks. 

So, while decentralized platforms are making waves, don’t delete your Instagram just yet — claiming your handle on Bluesky/Mastodon/Pixelfed profile, is a wise choice, too. 

We might also see mainstream platforms making tweaks to their networks in the hope of meeting fediverse users where there are, as Meta did with Threads. Even CEO Mark Zuckerberg is vocal about the importance of the movement. “Not everyone wants to use one product,” he said, “and I think making it so that they can use an alternative but can still interact with people on the network will make it so that that product also is more valuable.” 

With that, I’ll leave you with another quote from decentralized network authority (and fan) David Pierce.

“Let’s be real: if Meta can’t build and maintain the One True Social Network For Everybody, nobody can. It’s well past time to try something else.”

Digital marketing quotes are an invaluable source of insight and direction to help you navigate the challenges and opportunities of the digital landscape.