OK - I've linked my Twitter account to my Linkedin account so that I can keep people I'm connected to on Linkedin up to date and my followers on Twitter at the same time.
Is this a good thing?
I have already had a comment from a good friend of mine suggesting that I keep them separate, and another comment from someone else telling me it's good to hear that I'm still alive. Their different opinions have got me thinking about why two people that I know, like and trust implicitly would suggest different approaches?
One thing that I have learned over the years is that when it comes to marketing, advertising, social media - communications of any sort - the way that people respond to them and engage with them differs hugely.
I was at a Business Link meeting a few months back where I heard Andy Poulton (@andypoulton) talk about how on the internet people live in little walled gardens. Some people love Linkedin and will only use linked in, forgetting about twitter, myspace, facebook etc - and vica-versa, all because that is what they are comfortable with, that is what they like and that is what they will respond to best. Like my friends mentioned above - one uses both and one only uses Linkedin. The one that thought I was dead uses Linkedin only, because I was living in my little walled garden of Facebook and Twitter.
Tapping into all of these networks in business helps you get noticed, followed, respected, connected and trusted to a much wider audience. From a business perspective, this marriage surely has to be a good thing?
I guess the time commitment you need to give to Linkedin to make it work and the noise, reliability issues and platform limitations of Twitter make each platform useful in their own ways and cause people to sit on the lawn on their walled gardens too - not wanting to leave the comfort that they find there and wanting to ignore the other platform entirely.
Linkedin is seen mainly as a connecting tool ideal for service providers and industry associations. Twitter on the other hand is a microblogging and creative platform useful for service industry type of businesses in the main.
Can you use either tool for the purposes that the other exists for? I believe you can. I have had business through both, chatted to people through both, published through both.
Twitter has become my default networking tool (tweetdeck more like), and with the advent of Google wave (when I get my invite), I am sure that it may event take a back seat then for collaboration and networking purposes.
What do you think of this joining of forces between these online networking super powers?
Will your Linkedin homepage become flush with 100's of tweets and updates, causing you to miss vital connections with other businesses?
Let me know your thoughts... I think for now at least I will leave them intertwined - "What therefore God has joined together, let no one put asunder." Mark 10:9
