We are committed to providing fast, efficient, and affordable software solutions that set new standards in the software development industry.
  • Twitter and LinkedIn Part Ways
Technology Articles > Social Networking > LinkedIn > Twitter and LinkedIn Part Ways

Twitter and LinkedIn used to play so nicely together. Sadly, those days are gone. Twitter has decided that it no longer needs or values its LinkedIn relationship. That means that you will no longer be able to connect your Tweets to your LinkedIn account. Even if you currently have your LinkedIn account configured to allow Tweets to post to your LinkedIn news stream, starting today those Tweets will no longer show up.

Not only is this relationship dissolution annoying, it’s also slightly juvenile. Ever since the dawn of social media, various platforms have been joining together and breaking apart faster than the middle school dating scene. This latest move is strategic on Twitter’s part, but it still begs the question: why?

Why Twitter Decided to Break Up With LinkedIn

In case you haven’t noticed, Twitter and Facebook are still friends. Why? Simply put, Facebook is a massive network with billions of users. Twitter is smaller than Facebook, which means that some Facebook users might see a person’s Twitter feed, become curious about Twitter and eventually sign up for a Twitter account. LinkedIn, on the other hand, doesn’t have more users than Twitter. Further, LinkedIn users tend to be inactive most of the time, and that means that Twitter isn’t getting anything out of this deal – or is it?

Twitter has actually benefited from its prior LinkedIn relationship. How? Twitter users who connected a LinkedIn account to a Twitter account enjoyed the simplicity of this relationship. Posting a link to Twitter meant that LinkedIn users would see that post without any additional effort on the part of the Twitter user. In addition, Twitter users only had to click the “share to Twitter” button on any given article in order to post news and updates to LinkedIn. Really, it was all about user-friendliness and now Twitter has taken this aspect away.

On The Other Hand…

Seeing hundreds of Twitter posts via a LinkedIn feed could get annoying. After all, Twitter and LinkedIn are very different kinds of platforms. Now, LinkedIn users can enjoy simple business bliss by not being bombarded with a friend’s constant Twitter feeds. If you have something important to say via Twitter that you want your LinkedIn friends to see, you will now have to make sure to click that “post to LinkedIn” button next to an article or on a website.

If you happen to be a website owner, make sure that all of your blog posts and other posts have a LinkedIn button next to them, so that LinkedIn users can share these bits of information easily. The LinkedIn and Twitter breakup is now in full swing, so keep this in mind when posting to either network. Not only is this disconnect going to take some getting used to, but I also have to wonder if LinkedIn will suffer at the hands of Twitter’s decision. If you currently use Twitter and LinkedIn, will this change impact sharing on either network? Or are you, like many LinkedIn user, simply tired of the business network that is LinkedIn and glad that Twitter has pulled the plug?