Why connect Linkedin + Twitter?

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Permalink Reply by Michael J Dukehart, II on November 20, 2009 at 8:44am

I have to admit with a little bit of shame that I do not understand Twitter and am a bit intimidated by it for that reason.

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Permalink Reply by Amy Stark on November 20, 2009 at 9:27am

You are not alone, Michael. We should have coffee sometime because It is the most basic of all the social media platforms. If you can text, you can tweet.

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Permalink Reply by Michael J Dukehart, II on November 20, 2009 at 9:41am

Problem is I don't text. If I want to talk to someone I call. If they are unavailable I leave a message.

I guess I just see most of it as frivolous. Too many people documenting most of their life up to the minute. If I want someone to know where I am eating or what I ate I would have invited them to come with.

I can see great possibilities for businesses and organizations but not for most average citizens.

coffee is the magic word. :)

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Permalink Reply by Amy Stark on November 20, 2009 at 9:18am

Everyone has their preferred social media platform and Linked In is number five on my list - behind Smaller Indiana, twitter, facebook, and YouTube. I'm embarrassed to confess there have been 2 week stretches where I didn't even visit my Linked In profile, which made it look stale... there was no life to it or movement.

The social media platform I prefer to interact with most often - other than Smaller Indiana of course - is twitter. The feed between Linked In and twitter now gives me the opportunity to keep my Linked In profile looking fresh without jumping from platform to platform.

I selected the option where you must type the #in or #li for a tweet to appear, and only send over tweets that align with the professional standards of Linked In. One of my major activities on twitter is to post news articles about - well - twitter, and the articles that relate directly to business are the ones I typically send over.

You mentioned above, "This integration is also reminding people that they need to think before they tweet." People need to think before putting ANYTHING on the Internet on ANY platform, not just twitter. Archive.org takes a snapshot of the entire Internet periodically - I think once a week - and because the cost of storing bits of data is approaching zero, they store EVERYTHING and then offer public access through their Way Back Machine. Check out the information stored about Smaller Indiana on http://www.smallerindiana.com/" target="_blank">Jan 5 2008. And here is a snapshot of http://www.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Beta on Dec. 2, 1998

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Permalink Reply by Nicki Laycoax on November 20, 2009 at 10:09am

I tested it out and then removed the feed from my profile. If visitors to LinkedIn don't Tweet, it potentially looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to them. @soandso Check out the #hashtag for yadda yadda... The two platforms, in my opinion, have completely different cultures, and Twitter has the tendency to lean more toward the social/casual side. LinkedIn is the more professional of the two...

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Permalink Reply by Mike Seidle on November 20, 2009 at 10:10am

So far, what the integration has done is help people understand that mixing oil and water doesn't work like chocolate and peanut butter. A lot of what goes on with Twitter doesn't meet the informal standard of professionalism over on LinkedIn and just look stupid. Many people turned on Twitter only to make fun stuff like this show up on their LinkedIn profile:

Joe Future Employee (not) is: #poop Just want to the bathroom. Feel better now. w00t!

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on November 20, 2009 at 11:05am

@ Mike and @ Nicki - On the one hand, I agree with you guys. Linkedin is for business and Twitter can confuse matters. I agree the two platforms have different cultures, but they're both young and evolving. It seems like this mashup will help both sides as we (the users) figure out the best ways to use the tools in concert.

Do business and personal go together?

We did a survey of SI users a while back and found that most people use LI for biz, FB for personal, and Twitter for a combination of biz and personal. SI, like Twitter, ranks high for the combo of biz / personal application.

I'm continually amazed at how many top business Tweeters out there freely post personal stuff in their Tweets. I follow certain people who I think will offer value to my business, and they do, but they also share glimpses into their personal lives. At first I thought this ridiculous. Then I realized that it was helping me see them as people, not just resumes, and in some cases I start to appreciate them - even trust them. I think that's good for biz. Following people on Twitter is a bit like getting a glimpse into someone's office. You get to look around and see the photos and certificates on their wall, and the books on their shelves. This personal data can provide jumping off points for conversations that do not relate to business, yet speed the business process.

I wish the business to personal tweet content ratio would swing more toward biz, but I can always unfollow.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Seidle on November 20, 2009 at 11:11am

Each community has different norms. LinkedIn is overly sensitive to personal stuff. Twitter is sensitive to very little.

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on November 20, 2009 at 11:18am

Seems like this union helps helps both companies. It breaths new life into LI profiles and will probably generate more use of LI. Likwise, I would expect it will drive more LI users to visit Twitter to read more about the people found on LI. Once there, perhaps more LI users will join Twitter...and their tweets will end up on LI, and the snowball starts rolling.

It will be interesting to see if and when Twitter integrates with FB...same dynamics will work, yet FB activity will look different from LI...or will it? While FB is mainly used for personal stuff, the lines are beginning to blur for some users. I've seen business execs offer links from corp Websites to personal profile pages. So FB will become better for Biz, and Linked In will get more personal.

And Twitter seems to be the common denominator.

I just wish I could integrate Twitter (and FB and LI) with SI :-), but NING won't let me :-(

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Permalink Reply by Amy Stark on November 20, 2009 at 12:07pm

Twitter already integrates with facbook. I set it up so ALL my tweets show up on my Facebook page.

People do business with people and I totally agree with you, Pat, that showing a little bit of your humanity is good for business.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Seidle on November 20, 2009 at 12:28pm

Pat - I hope you are right. So far the results are comical. I think using #in to make a tweet show in LinkedIn is probably the best way to avoid embarrassing yourself (to make that work you have to change a setting in LinkedIn under Twitter).

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Permalink Reply by Amy Stark on November 20, 2009 at 12:49pm

Here is how you do it. Takes all of 1 minute on your Linked In account. Linked In Learning Center . Click the link under number 2. It gives you options on how you want tweets to appear. My experience hasn't been comical at all, and I can honestly say I've never seen anyone mention bowel movements in my tweet stream. =) I think I would probably unfollow someone who did that.

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