May 24, 2010 82 Comments

Keep LinkedIn Clean

In my last post, I talked about making sure we Use LinkedIn Effectively. Here’s something else to think about: stop importing your Twitter feed into LinkedIn indiscriminately. If LinkedIn is meant for business networking, what do you think these updates (pulled at random) are doing to help your business?

linkedin chatter

Let’s see, we have:
A quote – shows you can copy and paste (okay, and a little bit of where your head is).
A link – this one’s actually pretty good, as it leads me somewhere, but it’s a request for help with a contest. (still okay)
News talk
Sports talk
Location talk – which is good for finding potential business meetings.
Software talk (?)
Another quote
Um… wtf?
And a retweet of a retweet of a quote.

Business Value

There’s nearly no business value in any of those items listed above (I’ll give Lewis a pass for his location quote). As someone using LinkedIn for business networking, what do you think others see when they read those bits of information? Do you think they’re at the desk, thinking, “Wow. Now THIS is actionable. I’m going to get a little deeper with this person right now.”

I’m going with no.

Use LinkedIn for Business Status

Now, what does that mean? Advertise? No. Maybe it’s a mix of uses. Here are a few I put out there over the last few days:

LinkedIn Status

In one, I ask a question about using LinkedIn for networking. It gets 27 comments (which isn’t bad, but also tells me that people certainly had some thoughts about the topic, so I make a note to blog more about this). In the one before that, I make a direct request for folks to subscribe to my blog. This is partially because I just added a bunch of new connections on LinkedIn, so I want to be sure to invite them into my primary property (my home base).

But in all cases, anything I put across that status message is something that pertains to my business interests in one way or another.

Keep The Stream Valuable

Frankly, what I can see happening in short notice is that people might choose to unlink from you to clean up their status stream. So, you might even be risking network connections by threading Twitter into LinkedIn.

Just because you can doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Thoughts?

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  • http://supercoolcreative.com/ Josh Phillips

    I agree. As long as people treat LinkedIn as the professional network site that it is, they can get the results they are probably looking for. The only time I see someone's twitter feed complementing their LinkedIn profile is when the feed is strictly business.

  • http://www.memorybits.co.uk/ memory stick

    My spoken ensure that we effectively use LinkedIn. Here's something else to ponder: stop importing your feed Twitter LinkedIn interchangeably.

  • http://twitter.com/lizisaacslwc Liz Isaacs

    Great article Chris…very well said. Glad I use Tweet Deck/other if I don't post my status or link to LinkedIN. Agree LinkedIn is used for business and the posts should reflect that. I am quite social on Twitter when not RT, answering friends,colleague, client tweets etc., so I certainly don't want those comments on my LinkedIn profile. Sure it shows I am a real person, but what does posting some post from blip.fm, or other social media source that may not pertain to my target audience. Most likely wouldn't do it.I could go on, am saving it for an up coming blog piece.

    BTW Chris, I would give Lewis Howes a pass too. LOL

    Best,
    Liz Isaacs, Lotus Writing & Communications

    http://lotuswritingcommunications.net
    http://lotuswritingcommunications.wordpress.com

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  • http://www.stc-webdesigns.co.uk Janie

    I know I've certainly dis-connected from at least two people who feed their Twitter into LinkedIn, both were also people who used Tweet scheduling to post a bunch of tweets at the same time. Annoying to find both your Twitter and LinkedIn swamped by one person.

  • http://www.mymorningwalk.com Gary McIntire

    I agree with not feeding your Twitter posts into LinkedIN, but the inverse (feeding your LinkedIN news and updates into your Twitter account) when using both primarily for business would reach the right audience, would it not? Especially if you were only updating LinkedIn 1 or two times per day, correct?

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  • http://www.jonfmoss.com JonFMoss

    Preach it Chris! Been saying this since the day LinkedIn allowed for connecting Twitter to a person's LI status feed. It's confusing to some, annoying to most and more importantly just downright plain unprofessional looking. Imagine a potential employer or client reading that you just checked in on Foursquare to Billy's Tavern for 50 cent PBR shots and wings. Yeah, that's priceless.

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  • lissismore

    I just discovered that you can set up LinkedIn to only import Twitter posts which have the #in tag. This is the answer, in my view. It allows me to connect my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts but have control over what is sent from Twitter to LinkedIn.

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  • http://www.lorirtaylor.com/ LoriRTaylor

    Chris, such a great point. The best thing to do is click on the box at LinkedIn and you can connect your twitter by only posting what you hash tag. How do I know? Because maybe, just maybe I made this mistake. Maybe. Also had the same mistake at Facebook where ALL my tweets were going on my page and did not realize that. So lesson learned. But people can hide you on Facebook and there is no way for you to know that it happened (I don't believe.)

  • http://www.yuregininsesi.com yuregininsesi

    Keep The Stream Valuable is the most important, i had read this and find very helpful. It is really nice to know about this things. Twitter is very popular social networking site as we all know. I think in all sites there must be some privacy sholud be there. All social media networks should be looked at as such too. Accounts on social networks used for business and those for personal use need to be kept very distinctly separate.

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  • prosperitygal

    Thanks Chris been saying this too since Linkedin offered joining both Twitter and Linkedin. I am amazed at the newbies teaching social media telling folks like realtors and others to connect all their accounts to expand their exposure and shrink their time they have to spend on social media, SIGH.

    How does what you do in social media align to your goals and what you want to achieve there? Is the question more folks need to ask. If you go off like a half cocked gun, you will have back fire. (hey as a Texas gal what else did you expect me to use as a analogy giggle)

  • Miller Finch

    I keep Twitter separate from Linked in, mainly because it’s a different group. It wd be like badly mixed guests at a dinner party. I shd probably make a new Twitter acct for sharing business w/linkedin.

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  • Svmonson

    Wow…thanks for this Chris. Just finsihed your book (SM101) and am launching my first WP blog. I don't understand a lot of PHP and feel a little overwhelmed. This is really helpful! The book has some fantaistic advice as well. I took the USF Advanced Social Media class..mashing it all togther now. Thank you! Su Monson

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  • Yertez

    You can set LinkedIn to only list twitter messages that end with #in now.

  • Yertez

    You can set LinkedIn to only list twitter messages that end with #in now.

  • Wondertwyn

    How do I disable My twitter updates on Linkedin? Every help query has not stopped my twitter updates, including telling Twitter cannot be accesses by linkedin.

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