Now you can push all of your Linkedin status updates to Twitter, and send all your Twitter posts to Linkedin. But the question is, should you? Linkedin is a business tool for solving business challenges. Linkedin suggests that you connect with people you know and trust. The Status Update feature was created to let you share with your direct connections what you are working on, what’s going on with your work, or something about your business that you want to share. It is a tool for providing your recent business updates to the business people you know and trust.
It may be relevant to update once a week–maybe even once a day– but not every time you Tweet, which could be an overwhelming number of updates all day. Just think how strange it would make you seem if you met someone in the hall at work or at the local coffee shop and you asked them what they were working on and they answered, “A penny saved is a penny earned!.” Or if you asked them a question like “What are you working on Judy? and Judy answered, “You’re welcome @JayJones! @tommeypinto, Just the best.” You would certainly think there was something wrong with these people. Yet this can be the effect created for Linkedin users when their trusted connections push every Twitter post to the business status update in Linkedin.
This is similar to the person that auto pushes info out to all their social media connections and tells me that they “know they are getting out there, but haven’t had much response.” The reply to that is “Do you talk to pictures on the wall or advertisements in public places? Of course not! If you are not present, why should they respond?” The same principle applies for Linkedin.
The correct use of Linkedin Status is for you to provide useful updates to share with your trusted business contacts. You would not walk into a business associate’s office and say, “Here are all my comments to people all day, out of context and thought,” dropping the packet on their desk and leaving. What would you think about a person who did that to you? That they don’t value your attention or time. Quality networking is not done through the rapid distribution and interruption of large numbers of people… we call that SPAM!
As someone who has been teaching people about Linkedin since 2006, I was concerned when they said you can send all your Twitter updates to Linkedin without a warning notice! The ability to selectively send Twitter updates (with thought) to your Linkedin profile, or the other way around, is a wonderful feature. Just stop and ask is this relevant for both communities. My concern is that good people with good intentions may not realize how they are annoying their own valuable circle of business people or just forcing them to find the “hide” button so they stop seeing anything they have to say. Remember Linkedin displays only a small number of updates unlike Twitter so if you just push all you Tweets over and have a lot it just dominates the field and would be like talking all the time at a meeting where everyone wants a turn to speak about that they are doing in their business.
Just to check this out, I posted a question in Linkedin asking people’s impressions of the auto push of Twitter posts to Linkedin for Linkedin users, and here is a sample of the responses: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/using-linkedIn/ULI/657379-548650 and here is a Poll I posted on Linkedin: http://polls.linkedin.com/p/87361/jwbsz
Martin Brossman on Twiter at http://www.twitter.com/martinbrossman
and Linkedin at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinbrossman
See an informal video I made on the topic:
How to Hide someone’s in the Status area if they don’t respond to you explain how their auto-pushing all Twitter to Linkedin fill up their feed.
I am especally honored that after mentioning this issues to Chris Brogan he wrote a blog post about it. See that post at:
http://www.toddrjordan.com/thebroadbrush/2010/05/diluting-linkedin-with-twitter/
Martin Brossman – Success Coach / Trainer / Author
www.ProNetworkingOnLine.com – (919) 847 4757
