I admit that I feel like I've never fully understood the appeal of LinkedIn, apart from its ability to help job seekers and providers find one another. A social Monster.com, essentially, with some additional features like Groups that allow for further networking. I know very few people that use the site's introduction features that allow individuals to help their contacts network with each other, but perhaps that is a result of the circles that I run in.
I'm a member of a few LinkedIn Groups, and from the digests that I receive, I can also see it as a new community for professional message boards to discuss focused industries. I think it basically serves as a new aggregation point - a sorting mechanism, essentially, that allows for message boards organized by industry. The social capability of the job services the site provides makes it a natural spot for professional discussions. A public intranet, almost, for industry wide debate and conversation. Again - this I get. And I think organizations can harness this power effectively for a variety of purposes, be it establishing authority on a topic, monitoring discussion and sentiments on a subject, or simply becoming an active member of a community related to an organization's mission.
But why would Twitter and LinkedIn integrate with one another? Aside from the publicity it gains for both companies, of course? Aren't these networks used in fundamentally different ways, and for fundamentally different reasons? Do people post updates to LinkedIn the way that they do to Twitter and I'm just completely unaware of it? And if so, who actually does this? What demographics? What people? Don't most people sign up for LinkedIn to advance their career, while using Twitter for much more personal or message based reasons? The obvious exceptions are those working in the digital field, but still - who will use this functionality, and why?
In general, I'd love to hear more of what people see as the function of LinkedIn beyond the message boards and listservs. If any readers out there have any thoughts, please hit the comments.
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You and Nathan and I talked about this before, I think. He's the only guy I know that uses LinkedIn for networking, but as a professional nerd who also works in marketing, it makes sense for him. Also, if keep all your little "experience" boxes up to date, it's a very low-stress way of keeping an updated resume.
ReplyDeleteKate: Agreed. But can you see any reason for the Twitter integration? Or perhaps Nate can speak to this?
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