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Opportunists Should Love The LinkedIn-Twitter Breakup

Perhaps you’ve noticed something missing from your LinkedIn news feed? That would be tweets.  Twitter announced recently that they are changing their policies as to how tweets appear in third party applications, and therefore cut the link to LinkedIn.  If you want to post to both LinkedIn and Twitter simultaneously, you can begin your post in LinkedIn and check the little box next to the bird. That will send the post to Twitter, too. If you want tweet-like posts to appear in LinkedIn, you can use a social media manager like Hootsuite and post status updates or content to Twitter and LinkedIn and the same time – Facebook too, if you desire!

It’s clear though that few people have taken an interest in posting news to LinkedIn. What I’ve noticed since the breakup is that most people have not made an effort to make up for the lack of tweets. Take a look, right now, at your LinkedIn Home Page. Do you notice anything? Is anyone posting news? Or do you see mostly the regular updates like “Betty Smith is now connected to Bob Johnson,” or “Sam Jones changed her profile.” Yeeowza! Those updates are boring!

Now that tweets will not appear in the LinkedIn news feed, opportunists  should develop new strategies for how we use and post to LinkedIn. What bits of news and information do you want to share with your connections? Will you be seen as helpful? Can you position yourself as an expert on a particular topic? Will your connections be able to say, “Wow, that Johnny sure posts some valuable news and insights.”  The point being, that’s exactly what people should say about you. If you want people to notice you on LinkedIn, you have to initiate the conversation. You have to keep appearing in the news feed with helpful, useful content and information that benefits your connections. Check in with your LinkedIn account, decide what posts will resonate with your audience and start making our news feeds a lot more interesting than, “Jane Doe joined the group, People Named Jane.”

Side note: Sprout Social recently shared an article on adding video to your profile. One more way to set you apart from everyone else! 

Tags: LinkedIn, opportunity, personal branding, social media, strategy, twitter