A few days ago linkedin had twitter integrated, when I logged into my profile I saw a whole bunch of friends linking tweets with linkedin. Whoa... isnt that the first thing you do when something gets hyped or over hyped? Facebook with twitter , linkedin with twitter , product portfolios with twitter and so on..... Eventually not only linkedin, everything thing that has status are now linked with twitter.
Eventually when you login to some profiles (include mine) al you would see is repetition of status across twitter , facebook , linked in.. in other words same info everywhere... I chose to unfollow those friends who have done so. Simple reason.. why see the same information everywhere...
Now this can cause you some followers, friends and good contacts or potential clients too... thus I am forced to give you 5 reasons not to do so.. at least not with Facebook and twitter.
1. Repetitive Information
I always felt that integrated twitter account helps a lot to manage your various status based social networks.. initially it started well... later it turned out to become a sort of unwanted link... for instance I followed the CXO of one of my previous clients over twitter , was a contact over linked in and of course a friend over FB, as time passed by it became apparent that I was only seeing info that I was seeing on twitter, to a matter that his blog also was showing nothing but tweets. Logically it was a waste following him on twitter and in my regular twitter cleanup exercise he got unfollowed. Why see same information again and again and at multiple places.
Moreover in terms of SEO this is of no benefit, eventually when twitter searches over google you may not find you high in ranks due to simple algorithm logic of duplicate content.
2. Dead Profiles
Profiles that are usually updated via twitter are less interested as the walls would show nothing but your twitter status. These profiles can be so dead that if your friends and contacts may decide to leave you. This usually happens with the Fan Pages. having your product twitter account and Facebook Fan page may result in duplicates and people may want to go to one source of information. This also comes with a fact that with several integration options you become too lazy to update relevant information across platforms.
3. No split in general, professional or social status
You may think that it is good to have them integrated but if you really want to link then choose what to link. Tools like Selective Tweets help you do that... this way you can limit the type of information (which could be very personal) going to your accounts (that are supposed to reveal your professional part). A friend of mine tweeted about how he hates his work, eventually his twitter account linked to linkedin. Over professional business networking platforms will be corrupted with unwanted personal tweets.. sometimes over hundreds of them in a day.
4. Confuse self , Confuse others
Imagine a housewife friend, a non internet savy who connects to your facebook profile only... what will happen if they see thousands of tweets all over your FB page or profile? Specially if you are a seasoned twitterer your profiles are going to confuse the only time visitors.
5. Dont get Hired , Soon get fired
If your linked in account says how much you hate your job, You are not getting hired and may soon be fired. This is due to the fact that many organizations over a period of time have started considering doing certain research about candidates they interview or new employees that are going to be part of their teams on internet and social networking sites. This gives a very bigger perspective of personal side of the members.. We ended up rejecting 2 potentially good technical resources as their social networking status revealed a greater sense of negative attitude and some statuses also revealed how much they hated working over certain things.
Not only this if you are tweeting how much you hate your company , Boss , employer and linking it to your FB or twitter you sooner or later going to loose your job.
Now before you go ahead and link your various social network sites with your twitter account, think, you may be watched, you may be writing on things that you dont want some people to know. Even loose your job and web credibility.
So what do you want to do?
