Is Force-feeding Tweets Leaving a Sour Taste With Your LinkedIn Connections?

I’ve noticed that more and more LinkedIn users are adjusting their settings so that all their tweets automatically show up as LinkedIn status updates.

In taking inventory at random intervals to see exactly how much real estate others’ tweets are occupying on my own LinkedIn home page, I’ve averaged that in every 40 status updates, 17 are “via twitter” – complete with hashtags, twitter handles and abbreviated language to fit the confines of a 160-character tweet.

I ran polls on Facebook and on a LinkedIn group to get a feel for what other LinkedIn users think about the practice. Results are here, but right now here’s my take on the topic:

• LinkedIn is LinkedIn – Please don’t use status updates as an adjunct twitter feed. I’m on Twitter to see tweets. I’m on LinkedIn for a different purpose.

• I appreciate LinkedIn status updates more when they are created specifically for LinkedIn. It shows you care.

• There are LinkedIn users who don’t use Twitter and don’t care to use twitter at this juncture. Don’t force-feed tweets to them. RT @DawnMentzer – Ur #status #updates look strange (& maybe even stupid) to them b-cause they don’t understand tweet-speak.

• You might be making yourself top of mind to your network, but possibly not in a good way. Remember, the community on LinkedIn has a lower tolerance than Twitter does for frequency of posting. You might be creating more noise than value – even if you’re putting out high-quality tweets.

• My guess is that your syndicated tweets aren’t gaining too much traction on LinkedIn. Other than via group discussions, LinkedIn users just don’t seem as receptive to responding to updates – my thought is that they use the other social media networks for that.

Agree or disagree? Alternate points of view are most welcome here, so please comment. That’s how we all learn!