I joined Twitter in March of 2007. It took about six months, but I eventually fell in love with the social media site. I joined Facebook and tinkered there too around this time, but Twitter won my heart. It gave us a way to instantly connect and have real-time conversations with, well….anyone that was on Twitter! The ability to discover new people and hear differing points of view on any topic imaginable was intoxicating
So for years, I spent almost all of my time on Twitter, and a bit of time on Facebook. LinkedIn was sort of the outcast. I never really saw the point as all it seemed to be was the same people I followed on Twitter, sharing the same content. Maybe a bit more focused on business, but it was pretty much a content stream, whereas Twitter was where you got the content AND the conversations around that content! An easy win!
But over time, Twitter got popular. REALLY popular. The celebrities found Twitter around 2010 when Oprah and A+K joined. Those celebrities brought more celebrities, and that also brought the mainstream media to follow them. The user experience on Twitter changed dramatically. The era of conversations had ended, the era of broadcasting had begun. One of the most popular posts I’ve ever written here was this one in 2015 lamenting that the organic conversations have left Twitter. It’s only gotten worse since then. Since 2016, Twitter has become a tinderbox of political arguments and fights. Every day the Twitter trending topics are dominated by political articles that are attacking this side or that side. And I still want to know what the New York Times’ secret for getting a minimum of one article to trend every single day, because they’ve found something no other media source can duplicate. (Sidenote: As I am finishing this post, the term “The Benefits of Boat Rentals” is trending on Twitter, with TEN tweets in the last hour. AFTER it started trending).
The constant fighting over politics really drained me. It’s basically driven me off Facebook, I log in once, maybe twice a week now, where I used to check Facebook multiple times every day. And it’s seriously killed my interest in Twitter as well.
So a few weeks ago, out of sheer desperation, I decided to give LinkedIn another look. What I found was a site that actually understands who its audience is: Business professionals. There was almost no talk of politics, the focus is on business. And I noticed something amazing about the newly-designed home feed: LinkedIn shows me what activity MY network is engaging in. It shows me when Tom endorses someone, or when Kelly Likes an article, or when Jim connects with Jessica. LinkedIn makes it easy to DISCOVER new people and new information!
This is the thing that made Twitter SO amazing as a discovery tool in its early years! For those of you that joined Twitter after say 2009 or so, you don’t know that Twitter used to let you see when people you follow interact with someone that you are NOT following. So if Kerry is chatting with Chris (who I am not following), I could still see her tweets to Chris. It was a wonderful way to meet new people like Chris, because I could see what Kerry (who I follow) was saying to Chris (who I wasn’t following). But Twitter decided that such a feature was DISTRACTING from the core user experience. In fact, Twitter has said all along that Twitter was never intended to be a platform for conversations, it was designed to be a broadcasting tool.
LinkedIn is changing into the discovery tool that Twitter used to be. That, plus almost all of the political nonsense is checked at the door. The focus is business, and connecting with and discovering new business contacts and information. LinkedIn even curates a Daily Rundown, which gives you a quick overview of the BUSINESS stories you need to know. Oh, and they now have over half a billion users worldwide.
It’s funny because when I started using and enjoying Twitter, I wanted it to get the attention I thought it deserved. I wanted companies to spend more time there, I remember being upset because it never got mentioned in the mainstream media. “Be careful what you wish for.”
LinkedIn is currently my favorite social media site, and the one that I find the most useful. Which social site do you enjoy the most?
UPDATE: It’s been very interesting to see the reaction this post has gotten on social media. I only shared it on LinkedIn and Twitter, and only once on LI. As you can see from the share counts, it’s far more popular on LI, but I guess that’s somewhat expected since it seems to be more favorable toward LI than Twitter. What’s fascinating to me is the vitriol I’ve seen on Twitter over this post. People have insulted me, told me I don’t know how to use Twitter, accused me of clickbait, etc. The clickbait charge I can somewhat understand but the title was more an analogy to dating, like Twitter isn’t my ‘steady’ anymore, now I’m seeing LI. And what I’ve really noticed on Twitter is most people are commenting on the title without actually reading the post. This happens far too often on Twitter. On the other hand, the reaction on LI has been far more measured and has actually sparked several deep and interesting conversations. The reaction on Twitter has mostly been that I am wrong and not using Twitter the ‘right’ way, and that I don’t know how to drive engagement. If anything, the reactions have helped solidify my decision to spend more time on LI versus Twitter moving forward.
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I don’t think it’s binary.
I still enjoy Twitter as a rapid discovery engine.
But I agree with you on LinkedIn. The changes that have happened to the platform in 2017 have been nothing but encouraging. It is a much better network to conduct business and make contacts. It’s finally fulfilling its promise.
And I’ve been getting 10x-20x the engagement with posts and contributions on LinkedIn over Twitter – but I’m not jumping ship just yet.
Interesting thoughts, Jason. Engagement on my content on Twitter has been falling for years. Five years ago, I would typically get 300-400 visits a day from Twitter. Today it’s a tenth of that on a good day.
If you just want to discover content, Twitter still works for that. It’s even good for information and news if you make smart use of Twitter lists.
I do wonder how many of the changes at LinkedIn are coming from the Microsoft acquisition? At any rate, I wish Twitter was more like it was 8-10 years ago. I’ll never leave, but I’m spending far less time there now than I once did.
Hey Mack, Lately, i’ve found twitter and linkedin to be a bit tough. I’ve been around on both for years, and they’ve certainly changed in the last year, and not always for the best.
I’ve really enjoyed having the Mute Words function of Twitter – it’s really helped me flush out things that I find mind-numbingly dull, offensive, and irrelevant. Meanwhile, LinkedIn has always been a great way to network with colleagues, and my industry peers and interesting people. I use both to help me find out information about my areas of work. I also participate in 3-4 hashtagged weekly twitter chats, which really boost my work and expand my knowledge and professional network.
However, both have some serious UX flaws, and some very forgetful user personalisation, with repetitive ‘See this less often’ (how about never, seeing as i’ve told you my preference?) and ‘Top Posts’ (no, I always switch to ‘Latest’).
I abandoned Facebook 2.5yrs ago, having been a heavy user of it, i finally ditched it when it decided to weed out the cancer treatment and death of my friends husband in favour of clickbait articles about a Kardashians backside.
I’m not sure either Twitter or LinkedIn have all that I would want in isolation, so I wish you the best with your choice, but for now, i’ll be sticking with those two.
Thanks Andrew, I still use those two as well. What I’m finding is that most of my network is on one or the other. I have some friends that will immediately answer a DM, who might not see a message on LinkedIn for a week or two. And vice-versa.
Neither place is perfect, maybe a better alternative to both is just on the horizon?
See you on MySpace soon then 😉
I think 2005 was the last time I signed into MySpace LOL
As another earlyish adopter of Twitter, I completely get what you are saying. I’ve seen it change over the past 8 years since I joined and I too find the politics utterly draining. However, I am sticking with Twitter, because, in my area of expertise – healthcare, I still find a lot of value. The key for me has been to find my tribe and drown out the other noises. Of course, this means I exist in a twitter micro-bubble which has its own disadvantages. I also agree wholeheartedly with you about LinkedIn. I’ve rediscovered a new admiration for it over the past 18 months and it’s one of the last places still unsullied by vitriol. Long may it last!
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Marie. I’m curious, do you use Twitter lists devoted to healthcare? I find lists can really help when you are wanting to connect with a specific group.
Hi Mack, yes, I do. I find lists invaluable when it comes to drowning out the noise.
Very interesting, Mack. And similar to my thoughts. I rarely use my Twitter feed & instead I’ve re-focused on Lists. I’ve also increased my use of “Mute” function to block out keywords (mostly political related). It’s cut down on the noise & annoyance drastically.
Yes, that’s a great plan, Kasey. We have to become more proactive in managing the experience we want from Twitter. Nature of the beast, I guess.
I think it’s smart that you’re moving to Linkedin. I think a lot of marketers are coming to the realization that Linkedin will give you a better bang for you buck. I’m about to publish a study I did of 1,000 infographics and found out that infographics got more shares on Linkedin than Facebook! Online platforms rise and fall. Twitter is falling and Linkedin is rising.
I still love Twitter way more than any other social medium. However, I am a journalist who is interested in connecting with other journalists, so a lot of us are still there and using it.
Lists and Chats are still wonderful tools on Twitter!
I’ve lost my affection for Twitter over the last 18 months, too, even abandoning a chat that was doing really well in terms of engagement, but nothing at all for conversion.
Who has time to invest vast swathes of time into something that doesn’t convert in any meaningful way? Vanity metrics don’t cut it when you’re looking for real numbers on blog subscribers, website traffic or sales conversion.
I wrestle whether it was my failing, Twitter’s or both, but either way, I redirected resources and have no regrets. I have noticed that I engage with people far less on social media now, though, since dropping #PRprochat. It’s probably not a good thing for an introvert, since it gets too easy to “hide.”
Good thoughts, Carrie! I still find value in chats on Twitter, but honestly I’m not ‘on’ Twitter much besides chats. Years ago I was there every day and engaging in organic conversations, but it’s just too hard now. It’s interesting that you say being an introvert on Twitter makes it easier to ‘hide’, I find being an introvert makes it easier to engage on Twitter. But all introverts are not created equally 🙂
The trouble with Linkedin is you have to tell people what you do for a living. Which is a really bad idea if you have a customer facing job. It used to have some technical info on but now it is full of pompous idiots. I used it once when I was unemployed and hated it. I dont know why anyone would go on twitter if they have nothing to plug.