Talk about worlds colliding! Twitter and LinkedIn will be integrated. Basically, you can share all or selective tweets or status updates between the two social networks. The two companies are referring to the technology merge like “peanut butter and chocolate”. This new feature is set to come out November 10, 2009. The LinkedIn blog has a detailed description of how to activate and use the upcoming functionality.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Can Be Fattening!

While I like peanut butter and chocolate together just as much as the next person, my hips don’t agree. LinkedIn and Twitter are both powerful social networks, but using them in conjunction for every single tweet or status update will make your social network’s hips expand way too fast.

Great in Moderation

Using the LinkedIn and Twitter integration can be a powerful tool when used appropriately and in moderation. Just like eating peanut butter and chocolate, while it tastes great, a little goes a long way. Once you determine your purpose, the rest falls into place.

Yes, this feature on either side looks simple to use (refer to LinkedIn blog for details). The question remains about how much should it be used? Here’s a few thoughts to consider:

• Why are you on LinkedIn? Job seeking, networking, business?
• Why are you on Twitter? Personal, job seeking, networking, business?
• Do you have multiple Twitter IDs?

Are you on a bunch of social networking sites? If you are, then odds are you are getting bombarded with information. Eventually it all just becomes noise. How useless is that? I’ve gotten tips from people and have come across tactics that work. It’s simple and easy to implement! Keep a look out for tips and tricks coming regularly on Connecting Redefined.

Tweeps All Over the Place

As an avid Twitter user, you probably have hundreds to thousands of followers. You follow them for a reason, but sometimes in can be hard to sift through the mass of tweets coming your direction. Vital information might be buried! Not only are tweets that are important to you being lost, but so is knowledge that you may want to pass on to your network.

Organize Your Tweeps

Bow down to the Twitter gods, for they have answered your prayers! Twitter just released a new feature called Lists. This is the best thing since hash tags. Lists allows you to create a “bucket” or “category” and assign your followers to it. Here’s a few handy features Twitter Lists provides you with:

• Create customizable lists that can be either public or private
• Ability to create multiple lists
• Assign followers to one or more lists
• Edit and delete lists (just in case you make an oopsie)
• View other people’s lists

Uses for Twitter Lists

While knowing what a feature does, it helps to know how to use it in real life. Not only can using Twitter lists organize your tweeps, it can aid in the execution of just about any strategy you’ve got in motion. A few ideas:

• Expertise: create a list for each of your areas of expertise which makes it simpler to see what you are all about at a glance
• Marketing: create a list for each of your products so people can see what others are saying
• Training: create a list for each of your training topics/subjects, use for specific groups by locking the list down as private
• Recruiting: create a list of the different departments or office locations you have for your company to make job hunting simpler

Are you on a bunch of social networking sites? If you are, then odds are you are getting bombarded with information. Eventually it all just becomes noise. How useless is that? I’ve gotten tips from people and have come across tactics that work. It’s simple and easy to implement! Keep a look out for tips and tricks coming regularly on Connecting Redefined.

Schizophrenic on Twitter

Do you have more than one account on Twitter? If you are a Twitter enthusiast or use it for work and personal reasons, you probably do. Split personalities on Twitter can drive you batty. Hello schizophrenia! People who have multiple Twitter personalities can find it hard to manage what they are tweeting, the message and forget simple things like logins!

Managing the Chatter

Taking control of who invades your brain when tweeting is certainly manageable. You don’t have to log in and log out of Twitter just to send tweets, retweet and engage your audience. Here’s a few tips to manage the chatter:

• Keep stickies on your monitor with Twitter IDs and a few key words about this ID’s purpose (no passwords!)
• Use a program other than your Internet browser to manage multiple accounts (TweetDeck is a good one)
• Look at ways to merge the accounts (Can you get the same message out with a single Twitter ID?)
• Schedule tweet times for different IDs (single focus at certain intervals will make your tweeting more effective)

Are you on a bunch of social networking sites? If you are, then odds are you are getting bombarded with information. Eventually it all just becomes noise. How useless is that? I’ve gotten tips from people and have come across tactics that work. It’s simple and easy to implement! Keep a look out for tips and tricks coming regularly on Connecting Redefined.

LinkedIn’s New Features: Best Friend or Worst Enemy

Like any technology today, LinkedIn changes faster than the weather does during Florida’s summer! Trust me, it’s fast. This can be your best friend or worst enemy. LinkedIn’s Group functionality has undergone some rather extensive changes since its inception. As a group manager, this is exciting. As a group or multiple group member, this can be daunting. New features include:

• Subgroups (groups within a group)
• Jobs (people can list jobs in groups under a separate tab)
• News (ability to share web links)
• Follow discussions (you can emails delivered to you when someone comments on a discussion)

Staying on Top of Your Groups

If you are not careful and do not stay on top of your group activity, you can very well get flooded with communications. Your inbox can fill up quite rapidly unless you manage what communications you want to receive. Here are a few tips to help you filter out the noise:

• Do you really need to join this group? LinkedIn allows you to be a member of 50, but with subgroups that total can sky rocket. Pick only the groups that will bring you the most value.
• Are you missing out on important job postings? If you are looking for a job and are a part of too many groups, you may be missing out on the job of a lifetime. Make a habit of checking out the Job tab in your groups.
• Did you miss a good news article? Web link sharing is a beautiful thing unless the truly relevant info is buried under a mass of communication. Work some time into your day to enhance your knowledge by clicking the News tab in the groups you really enjoy.
• Do you want to follow this discussion? If you don’t uncheck the box that says follow discussion, you will receive an email communication every time someone posts a comment. Pick the ones that mean the most to you.

Are you on a bunch of social networking sites? If you are, then odds are you are getting bombarded with information. Eventually it all just becomes noise. How useless is that? I’ve gotten tips from people and have come across tactics that work. It’s simple and easy to implement! Keep a look out for tips and tricks coming regularly on Connecting Redefined!

Too Many Friends?

As an avid Facebook user, you may have friends totaling in the hundreds or more, fans of way too many pages, applications up the ying yang, causes, and the list goes on! Facebook can be a hugely powerful source of knowledge. People can lose sight of this when being flooded with Farmville updates.

What To Do

Let’s get back to basics. How can you filter out this noise? Here’s a few suggestions:

• On your Facebook home page, you can hide updates from friends.
• When you add new friends, you can choose to include them in your status updates.
• Tired of Farmville or Mafia Wars updates? Hide them from your status updates feed on the home page.
• Disable notifications from applications by blocking them.
• Don’t become a fan of too many pages. You won’t be able to keep up with the really important ones.