LinkedIn can be an important element in a candidate’s job search or a company’s search for the perfect talent. But like other social media platforms, it changes frequently.

Last week we talked about Facebook’s email system and whether or not it was a good idea to use your Facebook messages or have them go to your email Inbox. This week the culprit is Twitter but it affects LinkedIn in a major way.

The folks at Twitter have decided to be more strict about third-party applications which send our Tweets to other platforms automatically. It’s understandable, of course, but it sure has been convenient.

What has changed?

Until late last week, you could set up your Twitter account to automatically forward your Tweets to your LinkedIn Updates. If most of your Tweets were business-related—or you have a business account and a personal account—this was a great time saver!

 

At this time, you can still forward your LinkedIn Updates to your Twitter Feed, but not the other way around. You can still post once and get it on both platforms, but you have to start from LinkedIn, not from Twitter.

Why did they do it?
It sounds like Twitter is getting a bit frustrated with everyone accessing their data streams from third-party applications and not having control over who sees their ads on the actual Twitter platform. I read today that 79 out of the Fortune 100 companies are using HootSuite to access and engage with Twitter—that’s a lot of influencers who are not seeing the actual Twitter site at all.
In the future, we wouldn’t be surprised (but we would be upset) if dashboard applications like HootSuite get cut off, leaving only the Twitter-owned Tweetdeck, but hope that it won’t be soon, if ever.
What is the bottom line?
If you want your Tweets to show up in your LinkedIn Updates, start from LinkedIn instead of Twitter and link your accounts in that direction. You can still use tools like HootSuite to schedule your LinkedIn updates and Tweets for future days and times.
I’m sure you join us in wishing we didn’t have to learn how to use social media over and over, but social media is still a new enough phenomenon that the platforms themselves haven’t worked out all the kinks. Check back to the Artisan Blog often and we will keep you up to speed!
Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative