Why have LinkedIn and Facebook if the contacts will overlap?

Posted on March 22, 2009 by Annelie Näs

Today I read a few posts about the interaction between Twitter and Facebook, now that Facebook have more of a Twitter look. Though I find the discussion interesting, I must say find the problem as significant as others do. Perhaps it’s because I personally never had my Twitter account connected to my Facebook one.

I find the use of Facebook versus LinkedIn much more confusing.

To me Facebook is a place where I can keep updated with old friends and people I meet from all over the world. It is the fun place where we post pictures from weekend activities and create an invitation to an event.

LinkedIn on the other hand is the social media I use to stay connected with old teachers and colleagues. It’s where I add new people that I met on different sorts of professional events. It is my professional phonebook.

Lately when I have meet people at different events that keeps adding me to their Facebook accounts. Surely, I would not ignore anyone to connect to me, but I just find it very confusing. Why do they need to connect to me on Facebook?

I know that some people have created two Facebook accounts, one personal and one professional. Surely, I could do that, but I don’t see the point since most of the functions of Facebook are so much better so use for interaction with personal friends. Versus the more professional features on LinkedIn..

In the same way as I would never create a LinkedIn account to connect to my private friends, I won’t create a Facebook account to connect to my professional contacts.

What do you think about this? Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

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  • Where did you take from such kind of information? Can you give me the source?
  • I agree with your article. I created a limited profile on Facebook for people that you described that aren't good friends, etc.
  • I love this artcle! Mainly because I agree with you, LOL! My Facebook page is my "fun" page: it's where I talk about hobbies, my family, and silly arcane things that mean alot to me. With Facebook's security settings I can actually control which of my friends see which information, which I also love.

    My LinkedIn persona is "grown up": it's my business network, equally important to me, but different. Anything I write here is "serious", although just as passionate. It's therefore more focussed on my "work" side.

    I'm passionate about both my career and my personal life and I love how I can express those passions on two distinct social media platforms.

    NOW: I'm intrigued about your comment regarding Twitter and Facebook. I'd like to hear more about how you distinguish between these two platforms. For me, they are linked, to the point where I have now installed software that allows me to broadcast on both at the same time. Love to hear your thoughts: can you put this in another article perhaps?

    Thanks!

    --e.
  • I really think its come down to common sense. Whatever you post publicly is just that: for anyone to see. I have deciced to focus on twitter and facebook mainly because they interact well, and while I use Linkedin periodically, its really mainly due to maintain my business group. If I had it my way, I would consolodiate them all on one social media site.
  • Viktor
    I agree.

    One thing you should think of thou:
    If you publish pictures on faceboook and "close" your profile you think your safe. But you'r not!

    If you use software likes Xobni you can view pictures even if you don't have the person as a friend, network, open profile etc. That's scary!

    So, next time you put night-out pictures on facebook Erik. Think twices.
  • Couldn't agree more on the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn. There are people that I have connected to me on LinkedIn I would never add on Facebook and visa versa for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. On Facebook the atmosphere is more friendly and relaxed, I can post silly meme notes of no consequences or fun pictures from a night out without worrying about them falling into the wrong hands because I choose the wrong security settings on them.

    And as I side note I do tend to fall in with those folks that think the new new (new?) Facebook has removed a lot of its usefulness by becoming a bloated Twitter.
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