In an upgrade to their Twitter app, LinkedIn have introduced a feature which allows you easily see which of your contacts have Twitter profiles and to add them to your following list. In making the simple connection, I think that LinkedIn may have opened up the wonders of Twitter to a whole new round of adopters.
Creating purpose
In a previous post I made the point that Twitter can be hard to grasp if you don’t approach it with a specific purpose in mind. Framing Twitter into LinkedIn’s context may be the spark that ignites the Twitter flame for many potential users who have struggled to get their head around how to make Twitter meaningful for them. All of a sudden it’s clear that Twitter is a channel for sharing and receiving professional insights.
Although this was unlikely to be one of LinkedIn’s design ambitions, it may be one of the outcomes. As it opens up Twitter to more of my colleagues in a meaningful fashion, it’s one I welcome.
The mechanics
How does it work? It’s pretty straightforward really, connect your Twitter account and enable the “Tweets” application in LinkedIn. Navigate to the app (disappointingly from a UX perspective, this requires you to go via the More… menu item) and you’ll be presented with a Twitter interface within LinkedIn.
From here you can view your timeline, view posts from people you’re connected to on LinkedIn, view a list of your connection’s Twitter profiles (and opt to follow / unfollow) and, in a stroke of genius, create a dynamically updating private Twitter list of your LinkedIn connections.
hmm, I’m backwards? I’ve always “gotten” Twitter, it’s LinkedIn that I’ve always thought of as one of the lamest, most boring sites on the WWW
I guess LinkedIn is as interesting as a cocktail party with your colleagues – that’s could work in both ways :-)
I disagree with your assertion David. I don’t think Twitter is as useful as people make it out to be. So what if you have followers on both sites? There are no real stats anywhere proving that anything is gained on Twitter other than a bunch of one-sided conversations. I have roughly 10,000 followers and believe me, I understand the point behind Twitter. I use it to develop relationships somewhat but I have to admit I have reduced my tweets to maybe 3 a day. That being said, it’s never translated to any actual earnings for my company even when I was frequenting the site on a regular basis. Twitter is a waste of time for professionals IMHO. If you don’t believe me, go check out the trending topics of the site at any given point in time. I guess if I’m trying to reach a bunch of kids Twitter may prove useful.
John – my assertion is that LinkedIn may help those who currently don’t “get” Twitter create a purpose for it in their professional context. It’s not about increasing followers on Twitter or the size of one’s network on LinkedIn. I don’t suggest that Twitter necessarily will open up people’s networks or become a new source of revenue. I think “success” on Twitter is very context dependant, it works for some and not for others based on a number of factors.
I’d challenge the notion that having 10 000 followers means you are developing relationships. I’d argue that 1 -> 10k is more like a broadcast rather than real, meaningful relationships. Have you looked at all 10k of those accounts and actively decided to follow them because they’re relevant to you? Do you engage with them and do they engage with you?
I still have yet to connect my LI to my Twitter account. I think I may over share on Twitter. Well at least links and what not which may not be good for my LI audience. I get it, from a personal standpoint so your Linked In connections can see a different side of you. When you strike a conversation they have a starting point. Which I do see the value but I am a heavy user and I don’t have 10k following me but I do have the people in the industry which matter. Which is what matters to me.