Facebook vs. LinkedIn War for Personal and Pro Networking

by    |   8th Apr 11 12:01 am   |   6
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LinkedIn vs Facebook Facebook vs. LinkedIn War for Personal and Pro NetworkingFacebook is the world’s leading “personal” social network and it’s fast approaching the 700 million user milestone. Similarly, LinkedIn rules the roost amongst “professional” networks, especially as a hiring tool and a B2B marketing weapon. Both networks have changed drastically over the last six months – Facebook had adopted a more business-friendly/ professional approach while LinkedIn is increasingly transforming to add a more personal touch.

LinkedIn now plans to step up the ante as it announced a new platform Wednesday which offers websites and developers easy tools to embed “recommend” buttons, company-profile boxes and contact widgets on third-party websites. The objective is clear – ring in more social changes and challenge Facebook’s growing control over online identity.

Professional Web

Facebook has been a great advocate for the Web 2.0 philosophy. Whether it’s likes, authentication on third-party sites or social sharing, Facebook has proved to be a game changer in more ways than one. And now LinkedIn seems to have caught the “Professional Web” fever as well.

LinkedIn recently announced its plans to introduce buttons for Share, Recommend as well as new profile widgets that show the LinkedIn profile of a company executive or website owner. The ‘Share’ button is an interesting concept as it lets users spread the news about a site or news story. LinkedIn is using this concept to let sites include a profile of companies and even display detailed information about a company. The idea is to disseminate information in a structured manner and make it accessible to multiple third-party websites.

Faster and more powerful

LinkedIn is all set to get faster and more powerful.  The world’s leading professional network includes a new Javascript framework that “loads significantly faster,” as well as provides support for SSL OAuth.

Though LinkedIn open API has existed since 2009, it failed to excite the developer community and never really took off. While some would accuse LinkedIn of copying Facebook features, I don’t think that’s the case.

LinkedIn says its new plugins will allow users to sign in with their LinkedIn account, view member profiles, view company profiles, recommend products, and do lots more.

Personal vs. Professional

The Facebook vs. LinkedIn battle has often been projected as the Personal vs. Professional war of social networks. However, things have changed drastically in recent times and it’s unfair to dub either of these two networks as a pure social or professional network. Gone are the days when you’d mention “social media’ and people would relate it either Facebook or Twitter only.

Though LinkedIn still ranks amongst the most valuable hiring tools, it’s firmly emerged as a way to develop connections that are more likely to positively impact you or your company in some or the other way.

Do you use Facebook, LinkedIn or both for your business and why? Do you think LinkedIn is trying to mould itself on the Facebook model? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

Douglas Idugboe, Digital and New Media Marketing Strategist. Founder and Chief Editor of Smedio! A Canadian Bestselling Author, Marketing Strategist, Speaker and Trainer, Who Loves Technology
  • http://www.mirroryourself.nl Juan Felix

    Great article Douglas.
    IMO we, the users, profit from this battle between the giants, cause they must meet the demand to stay in the game.

    I use LinkedIn and Facebook as a forefront to present my interests. I choose content that might interest other social media users. I frequently post articles on both platforms. This increases my reach. I do not differentiate between the two.

  • http://bit.ly/9PFJ1N Saul Fleischman / KdL Group

    That’s nice. For #in But as for Facebook vs LinkedIn, Branchout, not mentioned is spammy & evil: Tricks us into inviting those not in already.

  • http://www.rosemcgrory.co.uk Kate Rose

    It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out, but for my money LinkedIn (or possibly its users) will have to try harder on this one.
    We use both Facebook and LinkedIn for business, but what I see is many of the worst anti “social” aspects of corporate life surfacing way too often on LinkedIn – competitiveness, shameless self promotion etc.
    For example, far too many of the groups I follow are becoming dominated by raw postings of users’ blog posts, with no actual commentary or invitation to discussion.
    This kind of thing really erodes the best aspects of social media – collaboration and mutual business support – and I wonder if it’ll result in LinkedIn becoming a “corporate shark only” space in the longer term!

  • http://twitter.com/KateDavids KatetheRunner

    I completely agree that LinkedIn is getting more social, and being thought of as such. I am working on the social media strategy for a B2B company, and it mostly focuses on LinkedIn.

    I think LinkedIn has a lot of potential, from groups to how our services are presented. Adding this more social layer on 3rd party websites will really help this. As for the war between Facebook and Linked In, it’s too early to say. But I am rooting for LinkedIn as it becomes more social.

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