If you’re deciding between LinkedIn Audio Events and LinkedIn Live for your next broadcast, you need to understand that these formats serve different audiences and business goals—not just different screen sizes.
LinkedIn rolled out both tools to help brands reach professionals during their commutes, workouts, and other times when video isn’t practical. But the execution differs enough that picking the wrong format can leave you with poor attendance and wasted production effort. Here’s how to choose.
LinkedIn Live: The Established Broadcast Tool
LinkedIn Live lets you stream video directly to your followers and network in real time. It’s been around longer than Audio Events, which means the platform has refined the feature and most marketers understand how it works.
When you go live on LinkedIn Live, your stream appears in the feeds of your followers. The video includes a chat function where viewers can comment in real time. You can invite up to 100 people to co-broadcast, making it useful for panel discussions, interviews, or multi-speaker events. LinkedIn Live also gives you a pre-event notification option—your followers get an alert 24 hours before you stream.
The format works best for content that benefits from visual elements. Product demonstrations, executive presentations, and Q&A sessions with recognizable faces all perform well on LinkedIn Live. If your speaker is a known industry figure or your content relies on screen sharing, LinkedIn Live is the right choice.
Expect LinkedIn Live streams to draw anywhere from 50 to 500+ live viewers, depending on your follower count and how aggressively you promote the event. After you stream, the video remains on your profile, serving as an evergreen asset that continues to drive views and engagement weeks later.
LinkedIn Audio Events: The Emerging Alternative
LinkedIn Audio Events are LinkedIn’s answer to clubhouse-style audio rooms. You launch an audio broadcast and invite people to listen and participate. There’s no video component—just voice.
The format is newer, which means fewer brands use it and fewer professionals know to look for it. But that also means less noise and potentially higher engagement from the people who do tune in. Audio Events show up in a dedicated section of the LinkedIn app, giving them their own discovery pathway rather than competing with text posts and videos in the main feed.
Audio Events work best for thought leadership, expert interviews, and discussion-heavy content. If you’re running a fireside chat between two industry veterans, an audio format removes the pressure for either person to be camera-ready. It also suits long-form conversations—many Audio Events run 45 minutes to over an hour without feeling bloated.
The listener experience is also different. People tune into Audio Events while doing other tasks: driving, working out, or doing household chores. This makes audio a better fit for audiences who are consuming content passively rather than sitting down specifically to watch a video.
Attendance and Promotion Differences
LinkedIn Live benefits from feed visibility. When you schedule a stream, people see it in their notifications and feed, creating multiple touchpoints before the event starts. This typically translates to higher attendance numbers.
LinkedIn Audio Events, by contrast, rely more on direct promotion. You won’t get the same automatic feed visibility, so attendance depends on whether you actively tell people about the event. This requires email campaigns, follow-up posts, and direct outreach to your network. The tradeoff is that people who do show up tend to be more intentional listeners rather than casual viewers.
If you have a large, engaged follower base and want maximum reach, LinkedIn Live’s feed integration is an advantage. If you’re building a smaller but more committed audience around specific topics, Audio Events’ opt-in nature can feel more intimate and drive deeper engagement.
Technical Execution and Preparation
LinkedIn Live requires you to have solid video quality. A poor camera feed, bad lighting, or shaky video will hurt your credibility. You’ll want a decent webcam, microphone, and ideally a quiet space. If you’re doing screen shares or product demos, you need reliable internet and a second monitor to manage the LinkedIn interface while presenting.
LinkedIn Audio Events have lower technical barriers. You need a good microphone—this matters more for audio-only content because listeners have nothing else to focus on—but you don’t need video equipment, lighting, or a presentable background. This makes Audio Events faster to set up and easier to produce on short notice.
The content format also affects prep time. LinkedIn Live works well with slides or scripts because the visual component helps structure the broadcast. Audio Events benefit from outlines rather than scripts—they sound more natural when speakers have flexibility to improvise and respond to real-time chat.
When to Choose Each Format
Choose LinkedIn Live if you’re showcasing a product, hosting a speaker with strong personal brand recognition, doing live demos, or want to maximize visibility among your existing followers. Live video creates urgency and social proof—people see others watching in real time, which encourages them to tune in.
Choose LinkedIn Audio Events if you’re hosting interviews or panel discussions, want to build a smaller but more engaged community, can’t manage video production quality, or expect your audience to listen while multitasking. Audio Events also work better for recurring shows—building a weekly or monthly audio program creates a habit for listeners in ways that sporadic video streams don’t.
Many brands will benefit from using both. You might do a LinkedIn Live quarterly for major product announcements and use LinkedIn Audio Events for weekly thought leadership discussions. This gives you different ways to reach people in different contexts.
The key is matching the content format to how your audience actually consumes information. Test both, measure attendance and engagement for each, and double down on whichever format your audience shows up for consistently.
If you’re running these broadcasts regularly and want to share your experience with the LinkedIn Daily audience, submit a guest post about what works for your brand.
