LinkedIn vs. Facebook: initial impressions
I’ve been a user of LinkedIn for quite a few years now, although I only started using it’s advanced features over the last year. I’ve had a Facebook account for coming up on a year, but again, it’s only been over the last month or so that I’ve really started to explore using it with any frequency. So LinkedIn: very familiar with; Facebook: just getting started.
Even so, some basic differences have been pretty obvious between the two. If you use both sites, then I’m not sure this post will have much in it for you. But I’m guessing there are a fair number of people out there that are fairly regular users of LinkedIn, and are considering diving into Facebook and may be interested in a few initial observations as I go through the process.
So, after just about a month of trying to get better oriented in Facebook and decide whether to start using it full time or not, here are my initial observations:
- Facebook is a lot harder to get your arms around. Not only does LinkedIn have less options, it’s navigation is geared to highlight those standard options. While your Facebook home page is somewhat set in overall structure, you can also customize it to your liking and install any number of “applications” to add functionality to your page. The effect is that using LinkedIn feels like using an application, using Facebook feels like running a website.
- Facebook’s feel is definitely less formal than LinkedIn’s.
- Typically on LinkedIn you invite colleagues to join your network. Facebook is geared to more actively create situations where you get invited. There are several popular applications on Facebook that help you find people to invite and vice versa. I’ve received a higher number of invitations on Facebook versus LinkedIn.
- Lastly – it could be my network, it could be my computer, it could be anything, but I find Facebook slower… than… molasses……..
- LinkedIn tends to be strictly business colleagues. On Facebook, you’ll find business colleagues along with high school friends, old drinking buddies, friends of friends, and people you had forgot you even knew. This can lead to a large number of “friends” rather quickly; but it can also pose challenges to maintaining a consistent image online; especially if the image you want to maintain is a professional one.
- I haven’t tested this to any great extent, but it just feels like the Facebook crowd is more responsive and viral.
Those last two points are not to be underestimated. With all the people on Facebook and all the ways you can be found, you will very quickly be found by potentially lots of non-business friends and associates. My profile hadn’t been active more than a week before a couple high school friends sent me an invite. While it can be fun to hook up with old high school and college buddies online to keep in touch, if your purpose for using Facebook is business networking, then it can be a bit awkward when one of them posts old frat party pictures they’ve saved and scanned. So whereas LinkedIn you can kind of sign up and feel your way around, with Facebook you might want to do some research or even set up a bogus account to get acclimated to the environment and figure out how you are going to use it.
The good news is, once you’re comfortable with how you want to use Facebook and get a fair number of friends, the viral aspect of Facebook can be extremely powerful.
Chris Brogan must have had the same thing on his mind. He just posted some random thoughts on using Facebook respectfully and professionally, and it’s also a good basic read.
One final important thought
Keep in mind while these are online social networks, in most cases they are also an extension of real life relationships. In many ways I think we tend to treat them differently with potential impacts back to those real life relationships. I recently had a request from a colleague on LinkedIn for a recommendation, and replied that since we hadn’t worked together on a project side by side, my policy was not to give a recommendation. I have that policy for very noble reasons, but what I lost sight of was that if that same person had called me on the phone and asked me to recommend them to a potential client, it would have been a no-brainer. Online and real-life social networks may operate through different mechanisms, but never forget they are ultimately about relationships with people. Make sure your “policies” reflect that.
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Comments
Unfortunately, based on all the research I’ve been able to track down, we are ALL getting older. The only silver lining is so are all those teenagers on Facebook too! 
I played around with Classmates.com a bit in the past. They do have some interesting features to help you connect with your graduating class and even plan reunions. I found the problem to be excessive marketing on their part. The bait and switch E-Mails really annoyed me. YOu would get an E-Mail saying two of your high school classmates just joined and left you a message. You’d click the link only to find that two people that went to your high school just joined but they graduated 7 years after you did. And the message you got left was from Classmates.com asking you to signup.
I think it’s irrelevant anyway. I don’t remember anything you could do on Classmates that you couldn’t do on Facebook for free. I see Facebook getting used more and more by professionals (even people as old as you and me).
Hi guys! Sorry to be commenting so late on this post.
I have both accounts. But use them for very different reasons.
I use LinkedIn to connect to people I know and to those I haven’t had a chance to meet in my industry and marketplace. But, strictly for professional purposes. I find that no one turns me down for information or introduction requests. And, it helps to raise our visibility among potential underwriters.
I use a Facebook account as a specific marketing tactic to connect to a defined target. Because we are a college town, I find it my easiest connection to a continuous churning audience. I can announce the stuff they care about and are likely to buy tickets to see and try to glean as much intelligence about they’re interests and buying habits. We’ve been reasonably successful in converting invitation responses to ticket sales. I’m finding that the average age of my facebook friends is much older than you might guess because we are taking the time to sift through profiles to target our invitations. We also find the next generation invitations we receive match closely because they have the same interests and buying behaviors of their friends.
I also have a meetup.com group. I use this for another defined purpose – to find, communicate and connect to people with specific interests. We’ve grown attendance for a monthly program dramatically by mining the meetup communities in the state.
Different tools. Different tactics.
Hope you’re well. And warm. I hope the snow misses you by miles!
I found this post to be particularly insightful. All three of my daughters have Facebook accounts so I never really considered having one unless it was to keep tabs on what they are up to, particularly the youngest. The older two do this for me so I have left it alone so they can have their privacy. I felt Facebook was more for college students than anyone else although I know it is open to everyone. I may have to give it a go no that you have peeked my curiousity.
Do you have any info on Classmates.com. I found my high school friends listed there and it is a fee based service so I am leary and not inclined to join.
Perhaps I am getting old(GASP!).