One of my LinkedIn connections (Phil Masiello) recently asked me an important question – one that, in my opinion, everyone should be asking themselves if they haven’t already. Following is his question, with my response and a few additional thoughts:
Phil: Ted, I have my Twitter linked to my LinkedIn account. One of my contacts is complaining to me that I shouldn’t do that. Linked in is for business and Facebook is for other. My twitter is mostly related to business, business travel, etc. What is your thought? Should I take twitter off LinkedIn?
My response went something like this:
I connect my Twitter activity to my Linkedin account because I do very little daily LinkedIn interaction and this way my LinkedIn presence still has a life. I DO NOT connect Twitter to Facebook since those posts do fill up peoples pages and cause issues, and the language I use for Twitter and Facebook differs so greatly.
I have had a few LinkedIn complaints as well (about showing my Twitter activity there), but those complaints are HUGELY outweighed by the positive feedback and interaction it creates for me in a medium that lacks that easy functionality. I explain this to those who complain, and they all understand my reasoning. That being said, if they are unhappy, they can simply unlink from me, with no harm done.
I DO pay attention to these things and if the negative begins to outweigh the positive, I will change my practice.
The key things to ask before linking any social media streams are
- Is the information relevant to more than one network? If not, don’t link.
- Is the language (tone, formal vs. informal, etc) appropriate for more than one network? If not, don’t link.
- Is the content valuable to more than one network? If not, don’t link.
- Is the content appropriate for the purpose of more than one network/tool? If not, don’t link.
- Is the link (and resulting automatic feed) likely to get in the way of other people’s online experience? If so, don’t link.
Although each social media tool has several shared attributes, each tool also has different functionality and different purpose – which draws a different audience and content for each.
Bottom line? Pay attention to your audience and make sure your links between tools are of value to each audience involved, and not just an easy (but useless) way for you to spray your content far and wide. Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
On the other hand, when done intentionally and appropriately, linking content feeds from one social media tool to another can be a highly effective and valuable way to extend your online presence to more than one relevant audience in more than one way.
Bottom line? It’s your choice… just choose wisely, for the sake of all involved.
PS. Notice how Phil used social media to request information from a trusted source. LOVE it!
Originally posted at Zemoga’s FromBogotaWithLove.com
I do have my Twitter linkedin to my Linkedin Account. However, I only use the #IN in tweets to have tweets show up in my Linkedin Status update. I participate in some very active twitter chats and don’t want to drown my stream with those tweets. I have hidden from my Linkedin status update those accounts that frequently tweet their foursquare updates and MLM messages. Otherwise they would drown out the status updates I want to see.
That is a great approach Steve, and allows you to control the flow. For me, I allow them all right now because it has added value for me and it was less thing for me to think about. And it saves me valuable character 😉
Ted, as I always value your wisdom as well as your food choices, I have a serious question. Yeah, hard to believe.
How important is LinkedIn to me? I’m a personal blogger, as you know…you know my world. Do I need to work LI more? I’m there, I post occasionally, but I’m not “working” it!?
As important as you want, or need it to be. My take is that day to day it is not very important to you now, but the day may come when you will need or want to actively leverage. So my take is that it pays for you to connect to contacts via LinkedIn, the ones you currently have and those you meet going forward, so that when/if you need that access or connection it will be there and you will not have to first go out and build it.
I’m with Steve; using #in prevents my linkedin stream being filled up with all my tweets, instead I select which ones are relevant to business by using the #in hashtag and so far have only received positive feedback.
I didnt even know you could do what Steve is doing – great tip!
I have not linked my LinkedIn account to Twitter simply because I am not a fan of seeing everyone else’s tweets. Ted, I am glad that your connections are finding value and understand your intentions fully, but previous to this capability, I enjoyed skimming the status updates for interesting stuff. Now I just see a bunch of tweets – sometimes all from the same person. I have not found much value in seeing tweets there or sharing mine.
i agree with @SteveCassady, I will use the #IN hashtag if i want my Tweets to go to LinkedIn or I’ll just share a link with additional comments directly on LI. sure, it takes me some extra time, but if all my tweets when to LI, i’d have bigger issues! 🙂
I tweet, biz, personal, whatever comes to mind, so can’t have all tweets go anywhere else but Twitter.
Good post and question for many to think about!
Steve is the man of the hour for this post. His input has been incredibly valuable for all. What is most important is doing what works best for you and community/friends/followers.
I do exactly the same as Ted and Steve.
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