LinkedIn and Twitter Partnership: Do’s and Don’ts for Users

LinkedIn and Twitter announced a partnership on Monday allowing you to push your LinkedIn status updates out to your Twitter account or pull your tweets into your professional profile. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone called it “bringing the peanut butter and the chocolate together to make the perfect combination.”

Twitter integration with LinkedIn makes sense, but don’t forget these two services are very different from each other. Twitter is a very casual and fun network with its short burst messages, while LinkedIn is all about connecting with colleagues, other professionals and furthering your career. If you integrate your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, be prepared to make smart choices about what you share across these services, because what’s perfectly acceptable on one network, may not work on the other.

The Basics

You have three options for integrating LinkedIn with Twitter: you can rebroadcast your LinkedIn status updates to Twitter, turn your tweets into your LinkedIn status or both. To start integrating your tweets, you need to edit your LinkedIn settings by adding Twitter from your profile page or by clicking the Twitter icon next to your status on the homepage. Twitter integration will be rolled out to all LinkedIn users over the next few days, so you may not see the new feature right away.

DO’s and Don’ts

DO broadcast your LinkedIn status to Twitter. Chances are your updates on LinkedIn contain things you want to talk about with as many people as possible like what you’re working on, what you need help with or just a general question. Broadcasting these updates to your Twitter followers will only add to your knowledge and help get the word out about what you’re doing. To push your LinkedIn status out to Twitter, click the check box next to the Twitter icon on your LinkedIn homepage, enter your update and click “Share.”

DO link multiple Twitter accounts to your LinkedIn profile. If you have more than one Twitter identity, you probably have one account for personal tweets and others related to your business or job. It’s almost impossible to hide your personal Twitter account from the rest of the world, so why not integrate all your Twitter accounts with LinkedIn? Besides, if you send out a lot of work-related or topical items from your personal account, you may want your professional network to see these tweets. LinkedIn did not specify how many Twitter accounts you could add, or what kind of broadcasting controls it offers for integrating multiple accounts.

DON’T send all your tweets to LinkedIn. Twitter’s not just a professional broadcast tool it’s also a fun way to connect with others. Don’t forget that. LinkedIn gives you the option to only send tweets to your profile marked with the ‘#in’ or ‘#li’ hashtags or to send all your tweets to LinkedIn. Make sure you choose the hashtag option so only the tweets you decide to share will get through to your LinkedIn account. Sharing an update about your recent promotion on LinkedIn via Twitter is a great idea, but all those drunken tweets you send out on Saturdays won’t look so hot on your professional profile.

DON’T display your Twitter account on LinkedIn. LinkedIn gives you the option of installing a Twitter widget on your LinkedIn profile that will show your most recent tweets. You don’t want to do this for the reasons given above, not to mention the fact that you’re already sending your tweets to your LinkedIn status. Why the double exposure? There is such a thing as Twitter overkill.

DON’T forget about LinkedIn. Chances are you’ll be in front of your Twitter account more often than your LinkedIn page, so remember your colleagues. There are many tweets you’ll want to share with them, but if you took my previous advice you’ll need to type ‘#in’ or ‘#li’ every time you want to send a tweet to LinkedIn. Don’t forget this.

Check out the LinkedIn Learning Center to learn more about Twitter and LinkedIn.

Reid Hoffman and Biz Stone talk Twitter ‘#in’