May 22, 2010 68 Comments

What LinkedIn Was Thinking and How It Really Turned Out

Okay, I get it. LinkedIn wanted to link Twitter into LinkedIn so that we’d see a glimpse into a human’s day to day life. The mindset would be, “We know that Chris runs New Marketing Labs, and we read his blog, so seeing a tweet or two go by in his status will show us that he’s human and how he’s doing.” The thing is, Twitter is our scratch pad, our watercooler, our telephone. Look at this:

linkedin status updates

None of it is particularly “wrong.” But nearly none of it is business useful. If you’re doing it (linking your Twitter to your LinkedIn, please consider going here to change that.

I just figured out what LinkedIn could/should consider doing with this kind of info, the Twitter stream, that is.

Move it into my Profile.

Here’s why: if someone decides to come and spend time with my profile, it might be useful to see what’s on my mind at any given time. I tweet upwards of 50-70 times a day, though, so that’s quite a sprawl. Just the same, they’ll get a taste for how I communicate.

But by linking it into my LinkedIn status stream, it’s a big mess. It’s just a blurt of stuff that rarely relates to business.

See the difference?

On Monday, I’m going to post two more posts about LinkedIn and how you can get more out of it. If you’re not already subscribed to my blog, consider getting it sent to you by email (we respect your privacy):

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http://twitter.com/SonyaJMills Sonya J Mills

I've got my Twitter > LinkedIn connection set so that it only posts tweets with the hashtag #in to my LinkedIn profile. That way I make sure the content is relevant to the business purpose of LinkedIn. It works for me…
http://ianmrountree.com Ian M Rountree

I'm one of the group that barely spends energy on LinkedIn – however, it's been useful having my Twitter stream set to show up when marked #in, mostly as an automation thing. I think Iend up making one #in-specific tweet per quarter, but having the option is nice.

Total segregation of work and play is getting harder – awareness is key, however, so I'd agree. Ham sandwich on your cover letter is just as bad as ham sandwich tweets on your LinkedIn profile.
http://www.lainiesips.com Lainie Petersen

Yes, I discovered this awhile back when I added LinkedIn to my sites on Ping.Fm. To my horror, I realized that my “business” profile took on an entirely different character.

LinkedIn remains quite separate from my other social media activities, and for good reason.

Thanks for posting this.
http://www.fearlessindustry.com Michael Cooney – EngNet

Chris, Do you have little Elves that help you get all this information out everyday?
I'm learning a lot about social marketing from You and Mitch Joel, but I have to ask how do you have time for all of this?
I have my Tweets on my LinkedIN, but I keep it about business and I only tweet a couple times a day, if that… Time is the issue.
http://twitter.com/brucerunions Bruce Runions

Content is king…but in the case of your Twitter stream on LinkedIn – relevance supersedes content.

Quickly switched to the #in option when I added my Twitter account as no one needs yet one more stream of consciousness in a forum designed for business.

I imagine LinkedIn will optimize this option in the near future as to not dilute the value of the homepage.

Couldn't agree more.
http://principlesoffailure.blogspot.com/ SHerdegen

Phew, I had to go check my LinkedIn page quickly to make sure it wasn’t displaying all my recent Tweets. Luckily, no.

I think this may be an option but not automatic. I’m with you though, it’s not the kind of stuff I’d want on my LinkedIn page. Let’s face it, we’re in a time of transition and people are able to see more but still stuck with outdated notions of what’s appropriate.

I think there will be a time, and maybe not too far off either, when people will recognize just because a person is very professional at work doesn’t mean they don’t cut loose on the weekends. Or after hours during the week. Or maybe sometimes during lunch.

Point is, when we see every aspect of people’s lives our guidelines of what is appropriate and inappropriate will have to change.

Until then, I’m trying to keep my worlds from colliding.
http://twitter.com/justinkistner justinkistner

LinkedIn+Twitter=Litter
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamnash Adam Nash

The default setting on LinkedIn is to only import tweets that have the #in hashtag on them. This allows users who set their status regularly from Twitter to have professionally-relevant status updates (like sharing of news, or opinions) automatically sent to their LinkedIn network.

There is an option to import all tweets into LinkedIn, but it is intended only for users who use their Twitter account in a purely professional manner.

Hope this helps.
Adam
digiphile

Ah, I see your point now. Didn't grok it deeply enough on Twitter. Ironic, right? The thinking that a user would want business-relevant information on LinkedIn about work, presentations, seminars, career moves, questions about strategy, white papers, etc?

Tricky to get the social integration right. Good to see you thinking this through. I look forward to seeing what you'd suggest for a fix.
http://www.kherize5.com Suzanne Vara

It is a complete mess and I encourage people to not have it automatically link but to utilize the #li on twitter when they want something shared on LI. I understand why the folks at LinkedIn did this but at the same time I think it lessens and cheapens the platform.

@SuzanneVara
http://www.fifthandmain.com PeteWright

Yup. And it's painful. It strikes me that most of my LinkedIn friends don't actually get the social web. Thus, introduction of my Twitter feed felt like clutter — as Justin says below, “litter” — and in fact had a good handful of friends unfriend me over just a few days of reposting my Twitter feed in my LinkedIn status.

So, I dropped it. But the thing about federation is that I don't want to have to think about adding a hashtag to the posts I want to go to certain places. I want the system to be intelligent enough to put my information in the right place by default. As a side note, when Twitter was tied in to my LI status, I actually found myself using LI more, exploring new features, etc. Now, it's back to second class citizen in my back of tricks.
http://www.sonnygill.com Sonny Gill

Funny I saw your tweets about this just now and though I don't link my Twitter because of this very reason, I didn't really utilize this feature as it was. I thought on it and put up a post but tied it with a question to try to learn more about my connections and what they're doing professionally.

That's just a small piece. Sure, it relates to my professional side and gives my connections more of a perspective of what I'm doing. But as I think on this more about our professional connections and our business related goals, how do we align the two on a network that's fairly impersonal in how people use it? Twitter integration makes for disconnected thoughts/ideas and makes this feature more of an after-thought for most, which your suggestion would help in that if it was ever implemented.

We share/communicate in different ways on Facebook vs. Twitter and other networks. Worth experimenting moving forward as I'm curious on what kind of value LinkedIn can drive if our communications are more focused than where many are at right now.

Good food for thought.
lewishowes

Chris, I agree that it can be a bit much at times when posting from Twitter to LinkedIn, and adding it to our profiles may just be a good solution to this.

However, I find that I will get more comments/reactions on status updates on Twitter that link to LinkedIn as my status updates seem to stay on the top of the home page for people on LinkedIn longer than it does in Twitter. I sometimes get 10,15, or 20 comments (that's rare, but it does happen).

You can respond more in the comment section than on Twitter, and you can create a real dialogue. I believe you are on to something in saying it isn't a perfect marriage yet, but it also adds value if you use it the right way.
http://twitter.com/acmontgomery Amanda Montgomery

What a interesting debate/article point; I personally use LinkedIn on a daily basis and constantly interact with it in my life. I love LinkedIn; but it is reserved like a good Cabernet for business goals/priorities…

I love Twitter. It's like a Dos XX beer, I bust it out for the super fun party in my life and keep it on tap- ALL THE TIME.

When we mix these two we are going to get some problems. As we all understand, however there is one rare exception to this theory in my opinion… If you are a person who talks about work all the time and nothing else then connecting your Twitter/LinkedIn together should be good to go.

But its a rare exception for a reason- those people are far and few between. I don't entirely believe in the separation of the two but heres the condition:

Keep it Relevant to the platform please.
http://www.webconsuls.com Judy Helfand

My account did not default to to only import tweets that have the #in hashtag on them. In fact, even after I changed it, my Twitter posts still displayed. I found I had to “edit” the activity display in the right margin of my profile. Whatever the situation, if it takes a blog post by Chris Brogan and numerous tweets and comments from others, it would seem there is nothing intuitive about how LinkedIn is really LINKING people.
I look forward to some clarity.
http://www.mikestenger.com Mike Stenger

This is one of the many reasons why I love using Hootsuite. You can do it with several clients out there when it comes to posting to multiple networks but anyways, I post new blog posts to Linkedin or anything business related to Linkedin vs. feeding everything on Twitter into there.

You're right Chris, it is a big mess. Same thing with feeding Twitter into Facebook. Granted, I post a lot of what I post on Twitter on Facebook, however, I change it up.
http://www.webconsuls.com Judy Helfand

Sorry, I forgot. After I changed the setting to only import tweets that have the #in hashtag on them, all of my Tweets were still showing! Then, I went in and removed my Twitter account completely from my LinkedIn profile, but they still displayed. I refreshed the screen, I signed out, I even opened my profile on another browser, still the feed displayed. Then I asked my husband to look at my profile, still it was there. Finally, edited the activity display and they dissappeared.

Ok, I am going to go swimming for a while and clear my head.
http://btrandolph.com btrandolph

I did a write up back in January about why the changes in LinkedIn were a good thing for users (http://btrandolph.com/2010/01/linkedin-new-look…). Yesterday, I updated that to reflect LinkedIn's recent “facebook-ing” of its staus updates to include rich content for links. Selectively tweeting using the #in hashtag WAS the way to go. Now, however, it may be worth the extra time to cross post from LinkedIn to twitter (http://btrandolph.com/2010/05/leverage-linkedin…).
http://dannybrown.me Danny Brown

I think the minute LinkedIn made the move to connect your Twitter stream to your account, the warning signs should have been there. It's like the Twitter accounts that are linked to Facebook – generally, each network offers a different audience from each other and “incursions” from one to the other is usually annoying. Not always, but usually.

The best option (and the one I think you refer to in your post?) would be to offer it as an application, much like Reading List or TripIt, etc. Then only profile visitors would see it, and connect up (if need be).

I see LinkedIn very much as a connection post between professionals, where learning and thought leadership can be shared on a really wide level. Having the mundane of tweets (which there's nothing wrong with; it's a chat box, after all) seems a bizarre mix.

Looking forward to the other posts, fella.
http://zemalf.com/ Antti Kokkonen

Connecting different social media sites together is a good idea… to an extent. Twitter is built to allow huge amounts of updates, some other sites are not. 50 updates to Facebook? LinkedIn? Not gonna work, even if they would all be “related”.

The same goes for Google Buzz, which has pretty much failed because people connected all their services into it (because Buzz encouraged to do so). It's yet another system that was not built to handle endless updates from Twitter.

My solution: use the different sites for different purposes. Twitter gets everything. Business & “work” updates go to LinkedIn. “Personal” stuff go to Facebook (personal) profile (that I've kept to my close friends and family). How-to and blog related stuff goes to the Facebook page. Main blog gets majority of “thought-through” and strategic content. Quick drafts, comments, links, etc. go to Posterous and get posted around to a whole bunch of little hubs, like Tumblr, WordPress.com, identi.ca, etc.

Sounds complicated, but in the end it really isn't. And for the main social sites (Twitter, Fb, LinkedIn and MySpace) I can use TweetDeck to update them all selectively, based on the content of the update.
http://www.brianbarela.typepad.com/ Brian Barela

have felt this way ever since they added the feature.

seems very redundant as well. when i login to linkedin the first thing i see are status updates from my read that i have already read at least once, and usually twice (on my iphone & seesmic desktop).

really like the profile as a solution, or even a drop down of sorts where seeing tweets is optional.

as a young professional using LinkedIn to build my reputation, it's hard for me to see any value in integrating twitter, especially since i use it speak casually w my friends, and talk trash as well :)
http://twitter.com/davidpaull David Paull

The bigger issue for me is people must decide what tools they are going to use and
for what purposes. #in is a great way to filter which relevant tweets hit LinkedIn. Another option is to have two Twitter profiles, as Chris does, and use them for
different. Perhaps one of those would
be appropriate to link with LinkedIn full
time? Perhaps not.

But just because all these tools are
available, and many can hook into one another, doesn't mean they should all be used or all be hooked. Pick the tool(s) that serve the necessary purpose(s) to further your cause(s) (business or pleasure) and use them wisely.
or pleasure) then use those tools wisely.
http://byronnewmedia.com Deano Power

Two thumbs up Chris I couldn't agree more.

However I do reccomend the reverse. Tweet from linkedin a couple of times a week. That is have you LinkedIn Status updates linked to Twitter. Then 3 – 5 times a week send a LinkedIn Status update that adds value and positions you as an authority in your niche.

It's not likely to sent a flood of traffic from Twitter back to LinkedIn, but you were probably going to tweet that update anyway, so do it from LinkedIn and get some leverage. It will also make your LinkedIn profile look more current and lived in.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nikola-Ranguelov/77803220 Nikola Ranguelov

And that's why I only let it publish tweets that end in the #in hashtag.
http://www.danieldecker.net Daniel Decker

Great idea on the Twitter feed. For me, I haven't spent much time at all on LinkedIn. Never found it to be very resourceful and frankly found it hard to use (in the past) as a networking tool to connect with others. It's like a bunch of people with a ticket to the same party but very few actively showing up.

Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on it. I think LinkedIn has potential benefit but just seems to have barriers that hinder it being more useful.
http://www.ann-sense.com/ Ann Marie van den Hurk, APR

Agree totally with you regarding Twitter and LinkedIn being linked. I rarely dual post unless it is something professional such as articles or sharing a blog post. There is a lot of “noise” on Twitter which is fine (and fun), but LinkedIn needs to be more focused.
thomsinger

I do not link my Twitter to my LinkedIn. I do not link twitter to Facebook either. While many of the same people are connected to me on all three, some are not. The purpose of all three are different. If they were not different, then we would not need all three (although one can argue that we do not).

By linking your status updates it makes life easy (post once, it appears all over)…. but it also means it confuses your audiences. LinkedIn is more business, Facebook is more about me as a whole person, and Twitter is my canvas (free form).

I think LinkedIn looked at Twitter and was afraid they were missing the boat, since it was so trendy-hot. Thus they let the linking begin and it has polluted their stream.
http://www.nevermoresearch.com Mike Wilton

It's funny that you bring this up because it's exactly why I never linked to two together. I never felt my twitter banter would be of any use to my LinkedIn crowd. Sure I post relevant articles and information via twitter, but I also interact, and share random anecdotes throughout my day.

I guess the real question is, how many people are really paying attention to this information? 9 times out of 10 when I login to LinkedIn and I see people's info fed via twitter it's nothing but noise and I ignore it. I do like your idea of having the stream show up somewhere on your profile though. It would cut back on noise and still provide the twitter stream as a communication source.
http://impulsemagazine.net Impulse Magazine

I think they should keep it how is is because it will start to confuse people just like Facebook
http://12flat.com/ Stuart L

But, if your a php geek and want the same kind of flexibility, check out the Atahualpa theme at Bytesforall. I really don't get a kickback. It's free so how could I? lol Thesis does rock though. Thanks for the #in tip. Changed and done.
http://www.fpk3.com Fred Kaffenberger

Interesting. I see there is a Tweets application, which can be set to display on the profile and/or on the homepage. I don't know if this is a new app or not. I also noticed that my jobs app disappeared from the right column and it's no longer available to add.
http://www.credcommunications.com Mandy Queen

I totally agree. I see daft updates on LinkedIn all the time, which are via twitter and foursquare. I don't really want to know which pub you are in on a Friday night. I think some people want to show that they use social media, not realising that what they are actually doing is showing that they don't know HOW to use it. haven't linked my twitter account to LinkedIn but I do a #in when I want to post a relevant article – like this one.
http://mydarabell.com/ Dara Bell

I agree alot. They are two wildly different spaces. The link can present some difficulties, you could even lose your job if your employer was reading your LinkedIn page. Check for that on the right panel, the ammount of corporate spying is unreal (who has viewed your profile).

I have to get into the habit of using #in more. I think we should all approach the situation is we were being spyed on by the F.B.I. by managing our data and messages. We should be doing this if anyway if we fosters good Social Media Relations.

I thought alot when I synched the two, whether this was a hot idea, but I feel as long as I monitor my Tweets, I will not jeopordize business. I did think like Mike Wilton for sec but then I remembered I am in the business of crafting messages and storytelling, also growing up in Ireland makes you a little paranoid to begin with.

I think Daniel you would be unwise to throw Linked In out of your strategy, I think if can play with it some more. I discovered the Lions Networks this week-end, always wondered you how people got all those connections. Maybe that is another ethical debate. Ouch!!!

Ta for reminder.

Dara Bell
http://twitter.com/VelChain Dave Lutz

Chris, so happy you wrote this! It's OK to tweet your LinkedIn status, but kinda of spammie to go the other way. For my biz, LinkedIn is the tool that delivers the greatest value. I love the idea of seeing one's tweets in their profile. Hopefully, LinkedIn is listening. If I were them, I might even consider adding the twitter stream for paid users. I have a premium account, but differentiators are minor. Kinda cool to have the icon next to my name though. .
tedbilich

Chris, you're absolutely right. The unfiltered Twitter stream tends to degrade the “home” page of my LinkedIn account. Twitter is, as I have written elsewhere (http://tinyurl.com/28xhnh5) the college music station of news and information. Unfiltered, it's almost unusable. Filtered, through Tweetdeck or otherwise, it's extraordinary.

Your proposed solution — putting the stream on my profile — is good, but there is still risk. Unless I can filter it, I would still end up with a lot of junk there, too.

Best, Ted
http://www.tedbilich.com
http://www.cfctwo.com Charles F. Callihan II

I'm moving in the direction of making Twitter a professional/business side to me with relevant personal stories and making Facebook my fun site, with things that are not relevant to my professional sphere. I would like to see Twitter embrace this and work with LinkedIn in this capacity.

http://toddrjordan.com/thebroadbrush tojosan

I respect your separation of intent between services.
It’s often hard to tell the difference with folks.
Regarding Twitter & LinkedIn cooperating? I’d prefer each did it’s own thing as companies while letting apps such as Tweetdeck allow for cross-posting.

http://twitter.com/keithstoeckeler Keith Stoeckeler

Just because you can link two items together, doesn't mean you should. LinkedIn should remain business focused, not life focused. I think your option for putting Twitter stream in the profile is a good one. I have my Twitter handle visible on my LinkedIn profile, but have never posted a tweet via LinkedIn – the two should remain separate.

Separate, but similar note: I know why Foursquare enables you to share your check-in via Twitter (growth of the service, as more eyeballs see check-ins) but that's another example of two entities which should remain separate.
danlambeth

Chris has a great idea for those who tweet as often as he does but I would be willing to bet that there are not very many people as relevant as Chris that are Tweeting on that scale. A lot of people consider Twitter as their personal billboard and not as their scratch pad, watercooler, and telephone.
TaylorEllwood

I dislike the linkedin- twitter connection because people don't recognize that the purpose of twitter is different from linkedin. So they end up providing a lot of information on Linkedin that isn't relevant at all. It shows an immature understanding of social networking sites, really, because people will connect sites together without fully thinking through whether they will still be engaging people on those individual sites, or if their content is relevant to those sites.
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http://twitter.com/jon626537 Jonathan Ward

LinkedIn need to recognise the context in which people are using these social channels of communication. I use Tweetdeck and link my Facebook account for when I wish to post into my status updates at the same time. However, I appreciate the opportunity to decide whether or not to post into my Twitterfeed and/or my Facebook profile depending on the context of the post. My Facebook account is more personal in which I have my family and close friends associated and so, I don't think they would appreciate a post with a link to the finer aspects of SQL injections, whereas, whilst I like to include a personable element in my Twitterfeed, I see this as being more orientated to my work.

Perhaps LinkedIn should reach out to the developers of Twitter applications and provide the choice through there.
fichtnerbass

So glad you wrote this – I use RSS feeds to monitor LinkedIn and connect with many of the same people on multiple networks. Now I see the same tweets in my LinkedIn RSS stream that I just saw in Hootsuite (or vice versa).

Next app will be a multi-source feed reader that will remove duplicates. Or combine them into a single update showing which networks were updated.
http://chep2m.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/ten-top-twitter-tips/ Ellen Leanse

Thanks for this, Chris, and for your ever-sage and useful perspectives. I've switched my Twitter stream on, then off, then on again, up in the air for the reasons you voice above. My last move was “off” and that's where it's staying. I don't want to tweet with the “hmm, LinkedIn” judge looking over my shoulder. That's not what Twitter's for. cheers, Ellen
http://www.primarybs.co.uk Peter Bird

Chris, I see what you mean but you can filter your Twitter remarks by adding a #li to the Tweet and setting up LinkedIn to only show those with the filter. I am not as prolific a Tweeter as you clearly are but I only add the #li to those Tweets that I want on my LinkedIn page and as a bonus I have incorporated a Twitter feed to my website that picks up on the same filter.
http://toddrjordan.com/thebroadbrush tojosan

Twitter status updates to LinkedIn is a problem not just regarding usefulness but a spam problem as well.

Heck, the junk people toss in groups and send me in messages is somewhat on the spam side as well.

LinkedIn, as you mention in your later blog post, gives contradictory advice to yours and it's a problem. My 2 pence? LinkedIn should focus on its strengths, which isn't live update interaction but connection awareness and pursuit.
http://toddrjordan.com/thebroadbrush tojosan

If I as the consumer is required to filter out content on LinkedIn, I'd just as soon pass altogether.
As a heavy twitter user, I do not send tweets to Facebook, LinkedIn etc that also go to Twitter.
There are a few exceptions, and those are more in the vein of a Facebook update which I want to share to twitter.

Rule of thumb I try to use: I don't want to be a spammer.
http://toddrjordan.com/thebroadbrush tojosan

Tweetdeck enables this choice and others.
Once accounts are set up within the Tweetdeck application, the user can choose any, all, none, or a subset of her networks to send a message to.
For example, a user can just post a message to LinkedIn, just to Facebook, or both, all the while not posting the same thing to twitter.

Other applications are offering the same functionality now.

http://www.downthewriterspath.com Vikk

I am trying to figure out how to get TweetDeck to do what you say. When I Tweet it’s showing up on Facebook and everywhere.

I thought I would be able to send a post from one specific place like Twitter to Twitter or I could choose Twitter to Facebook or Twitter to all. Not happening. I’ve wasted two days trying to figure out how to stop the Twittering on my Facebook with no luck. But I want to at least monitor my accounts via TweetDeck.

http://www.clarabelamedia.com Clara Mathews

I don't link Twitter to my LinkedIn profile. Twitter is more for conversations. In LinkedIn, I have those conversations with my various groups.

What LinkedIn Was Thinking and How It Really Turned Out

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