Blue Helm

Posted by Chad Mustard on April 22nd, 2010

I have to admit I was a little surprised when I saw the following chart on Mashable the other day:

The lines in the graph that surprised me the most corresponded with LinkedIn and Twitter. LinkedIn actually had a better year than Twitter!

We’ve all heard about how Twitter is growing like crazy. Ever since Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a Twitter-off, Twitter has been all over the media. Celebrities, news shows, websites and commercials all promote Twitter in some way. As a result, Twitter has grown at an remarkable rate, but surprisingly, LinkedIn has grown more.

How has LinkedIn done it? Here are a few ideas I had:

1. LinkedIn is more robust – I love Twitter, but there’s only so much you can do with 140 characters and a few different symbols like @ or #. LinkedIn has all sorts of great resources to help you connect with other people. They have groups, they suggest people you may want to connect with, there’s the Q & A section and they have improved link sharing capabilities. Also, your profile says a lot more about who you are and you can recommend close connections. These features are attractive to someone who’s looking to connect and network on a deeper level.

2. LinkedIn is easier to use – This may sound contrary to my first point, but hear me out. First, Twitter is not easy to understand for a new user. They don’t know what a re-tweet is, they don’t know what a hash tag does and they don’t know what the heck they should tweet. Worst of all, Twitter does a terrible job of explaining all of the ins and outs of how to use the site. Twitter does have a 101 course, but it’s not easy to find. The 101 course should be a part of the sign-up process. Second, Twitter is very high maintenance. If you want to have a successful Twitter account you have to tweet a lot of great content, which is not an easy task for most people. Third, there are all sorts of spam on Twitter. People get tired of being followed by accounts who are following 300 people and have few or no followers. I have to delete spam every day on Twitter, while on LinkedIn I’ve never had to. LinkedIn on the other hand is very user-friendly. There is a side bar tool that tells you what you need to do to complete your profile. They have great tabs that are easy to understand. All of the updates are broken up into categories. Not only is LinkedIn clean and easy to use, but you don’t have to update it all of the time. If you update it once a week you’re doing great.

3. LinkedIn’s demographic is specific – LinkedIn targets business professionals. There’s no point for everyone and their dog to get on LinkedIn and clutter up the space. The only reason people are active on LinkedIn is to network with other professionals. On the other hand, Twitter is full of people talking about everything from Justin Bieber to Earth Day. It’s not easy to sift through all of the noise to hear what you want.

4. Twitter is helping to grow LinkedIn – I think all of the hype Twitter gets actually helps LinkedIn. Convincing people that they need to be a part of the social networking revolution has gotten a lot easier as more and more people hear about these sites in the news. Professional people keep up with news; as a result, they turn to a network that makes sense to them…LinkedIn.

Why do you think LinkedIn is outpacing Twitter? Do you think I’m way off base? Let me know.

Tags: LinkedIn, Mashable, Social Networking, Social Networks, twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 9:57 am and is filed under Current Events, Social Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.