LinkedIn Is Not Twitter

For me – social media began with LinkedIn. I joined it years ago – because it made sense. If you free lance or have your own production company as I do (both), networking virtually beyond your immediate circle of colleagues and contacts makes excellent sense. Especially if you hate networking the old fashioned way as much as I do. And if you are ultimately as bad at it as I am.

Have I ever gotten a job outright from LinkedIn? I don’t think so. But I don’t think that’s the idea – even though I’ve never fully milked the network’s potential. I’ve learned ways to solve problems from others in my profession. I’ve been able to mine my network and even those of my connections for ideas or expertise. And perhaps most important – I’ve stayed alive professionally during times of extreme drought. And anyone who’s ever sat at home desperately looking for work -- feeling totally invisible – knows what that’s all about.

But something has happened to the LinkedIn I’ve known all these years. It’s beginning to look a lot like Twitter. And Facebook. Each of which has its own purpose. Something users –perhaps addled from all that facetime online –seem to be forgetting.

Instead of seeing professional or educational updates when I check my network, I see tweets. And retweets. Sometimes about where my connection is vacationing (OK if it’s upscale enough it might qualify as a “status” update). Sometimes it’s a shortened link to a news story someone likes. But didn’t personally produce, write, shoot or report. The whole purpose of LinkedIn is being lost in a maze of nothingness.

I too write about nothing – although certainly not as stylishly as Seinfeld did. I LIKE writing about nothing sometimes. But that’s what my Facebook page is for. Where my friends hang out. Where we can get together and throw comments back and forth and feel like a little community – if only on some server someplace. I want LinkedIn reserved for work and education – so there’s someplace in this virtual world of sharing and liking and commenting and loss of individuality – where I can shut the office door, turn off the texts and chats – and just - well – network professionally. Sort of what LinkedIn advertises. Ya know?

Since I’m a journalist --- I use all media for journalistic purpose. I tweet and retweet information and stories on Twitter – which links to my Facebook page. I search the lists I’ve constructed on Twitter for good leads. I follow people who do the same thing I do.

Do I occasionally post something self serving to LinkedIn, which is then processed to Twitter and ends up on my Facebook page? Of course. I'm going to post this. Ultimately – if you’re a news person – everything is useable, everyone you know a possible source. (Yes, even your grandmother sometimes.) And in this incredibly competitive, 24/7 newsroom of a world --- if you don’t promote yourself all the time, you’ll be run over and buried under a heap of social software – by someone who does.

So please – give me my LinkedIn back. Keep your story links and shopping sprees and Starbucks double lattes for the other social media. I’ll even join you there. We’ll do lunch. Virtually.
Just NOT on LinkedIn.