Professional network LinkedIn announced the launch of Trending Storylines. A new section of the mobile app where users can find curated interest-based feeds that surface developing stories and accompanying user posts that are personalized based on their interests and profession.

Trending Storylines could help increase user engagement with LinkedIn at a time when the professional social network is focused on driving up the amount of time people spend looking through its feeds.

If a LinkedIn user isn’t connected with people on business-focused network, they will still able to view Trending Storylines.This feature of LinkedIn is build to encourage people to follow other people, who can then populate their main feed with additional content in the future.

This features looks very similar to what Facebook does with its own trending topics section, and is somewhat similar to Twitter’s feature. LinkedIn now use a combination of human editors and computer algorithms to detect important storylines, then collect articles and posts related to those storylines and put them into individual feeds.

Each storyline will also have a unique hashtag associated with it, making it easy for user to join the conversation and add user’s own take on the issue. User’s can find Trending Storylines on their mobile homescreen under the Trending tab. On desktop, it’s at the top right of the homepage.

Trending Storylines enables user to continue building on this growth:

  • Stories on a String:

    Each story is based on what’s trending, and personalized to user based on what they know about them, such as the industry you’re in.
  • Get diverse sweep on every story:

    Each story includes multiple perspectives, ranging from news publishers and influencers, to people in their network, so that user can easily weigh up diverse opinions. For example, if user work in healthcare, they may see a perspective shared by a renowned healthcare expert, an article published by a top medical magazine, and a post shared by someone they follow or are connected to.
  • Use hashtags to easily join the conversation:

    Each story will have a unique hashtag associated with it, making it easy for user to join the conversation and add their own take on the issue. As the conversations evolve, user will continue to ensure they wear seeing the latest perspectives.

The new Storylines feature will begin rolling out in America beginning on 22 march 2017, wednesday before eventually expanding to the entire global network.LinkedIn also plans to add additional functionality in the future, like linking topic pages to trending stories and allowing users to follow subjects they care about.