The newsletter Not Boring had a very different view of Twitter in a recent issue:
Twitter thinks it’s Facebook, but it’s LinkedIn.
Twitter thinks it’s an ad product, but it’s a subscription product. It thinks it’s an Aggregator, but it’s a Platform. It thinks it’s a social network, but it’s a professional network: one built for the Passion Economy, based on the strength of ideas instead of past experience.
That realization should be liberating for Twitter and Jack Dorsey. Instead of being the world’s least innovative social network, it can be its mostinnovative professional network. Twitter should be the beating heart of the Passion Economy, and begin capturing some of the tremendous value it creates.
The newsletter goes on to make the point that with this shifty in positioning comes a shift in monetisation. Like Linkedin, which generates a large part of its revenue from what it calls ‘talent solutions’ as opposed to from ads , Twitter too could create paid products for people who use it like a professional network. As it says, 10% of its users generate 80% of its tweets, so there are clear power users who would be willing to pay for access to privileges and tool.
I think this has merit. This tweet from three years ago resulted in a lot of replies from people across many fields:
For many, Twitter is an invaluable aid to their careers. Their network of followers and the people they follow is their professional network. I have seen people among those I follow use Twitter to build a brand, communicate with prospects, promote clients, build a reputation, just like they would on Linkedin. When we use the terms VC Twitter, Investing Twitter, Crypto Twitter, Science Twitter we’re not just talking about interest-based communities, but the extraordinarily deep engagement between professionals in those fields and their followers. Both derive value from it in a way well beyond what you would expect in a typical social network. There are almost certainly hundreds of such “{Interest} Twitter”s.
End-note: In fact professionals are very likely more effective on Twitter than on Linkedin.
Linkedin’s Facebook-like 2-way connection model means that people are flooded with connection requests (that are solely meant for low-effort lead generation). The volume is now such that the norm is to accept by default, leading to people’s feed being inundated with posts from connections they have no affinity to and no desire to hear from. The signal-to-noise ration is much weaker on Linkedin than Twitter.
2 replies on “Twitter as professional network”
Hi Rahul. That way there are thousands of pages on FaceBook dedicated to employee referrals. LinkedIn has a ton of profiles that clearly look like scam artists out to seduce and date gullible people.
We can’t say that FaceBook is the new LinkedIn and LinkedIn is the new “bad” Tinder.
If you’re referring to last paragraph, then what you say in your comment is not the point I’m making. I’m saying that people have a higher degree of control over their Twitter feed because of Twitter’s asymmetric follower model – someone who wants to subscribe to what you say does not mean you subscribe to them. Therefore, my feed consists solely of people who I want to follow and engage with. With Linkedn someone wanting to connect with you leaves you with two choices: reject their request entirely, or accept but automatically have everything they share pollute your feed. The signal-to-noise ratio is quite poor.