You may remember that about two months ago, Twitter and LinkedIn announced they were parting ways. What their breakup meant was an end to the ability for marketers to sync updates from the two sites -- so no longer do you see tweets from your company's Twitter stream showing up on LinkedIn. And even if you weren't syncing every tweet, some marketers were taking advantage of the LinkedIn hashtag function that automatically pulled in tweets with the hashtag #li or #in. That is, until Twitter and LinkedIn called it quits.
As a result, you've probably since gotten used to logging in to LinkedIn to repost a Twitter update that you want to appear to your professional network on LinkedIn, and/or you've started to select the little Twitter icon that you see on LinkedIn that lets you automatically share your LinkedIn updates on Twitter.
Or have you?
Some new data released by PageLever and reported by Mashable reveals that marketers may not be taking that extra step, as referral traffic to Twitter from LinkedIn has dropped significantly since the June 29th announcement ... while referral traffic to Facebook from LinkedIn has skyrocketed. In fact, Facebook received 1000% more page referrals from LinkedIn in July -- the month after the syncing ceased. Take a look:
Wowza. Even more impressive? With that post-breakup burst, LinkedIn is now surpassing Google and Bing combined as a source of referral traffic to Facebook Pages.
What This Means for Marketers
We already knew LinkedIn was a powerful tool -- back in January, we reported that it was 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter. But for marketers that are interested in improving their Facebook presence, it just became an even more powerful tool. If you have a strong LinkedIn network, it looks like the opportunities for cross-platform promotion are ripe.
But really, it's not just Facebook you can grow from your LinkedIn presence. The reason that spike in referral traffic occurred isn't because LinkedIn users are somehow more interested in Facebook updates than those on any other social network -- it's just that the decrease in Twitter content has caused a (wait for it) decrease in Twitter referral traffic. Because it's just ... not as easy to post Twitter content as it used to be. So people stop. No surprise there.
That means if you start publishing more content to LinkedIn -- regardless of where that content resides -- it will get more visibility amid the now far less competitive LinkedIn feed. Want more blog traffic from LinkedIn? Post more blog content on LinkedIn. Want more LinkedIn followers to convert on your landing pages? Post more landing pages on LinkedIn. Want more of your LinkedIn followers to be Twitter followers? Post more Twitter content on LinkedIn. It's a lot easier to get your content to stand out in the LinkedIn crowd, now that a lot of the riff raff has been cleaned out.
Have you seen referral traffic from LinkedIn to Facebook spike in the past two months?
Image credit: Grim Santo
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Roxanne Mapp 4:15 PM on September 20, 2012
Wow! That was a very informative article. I really had no idea that
Twitter and LinkedIn parted ways.
Thanks for sharing, I will be paying attention and taking your advice.
Paul Coxhill 4:15 PM on September 20, 2012
Interesting piece. One workaround for marketers who still want to automate this is to set up a rule using IFTTT.com which means you can still post to LinkedIn from twitter. Try https://ifttt.com/myrecipes/personal/1399179/share.
Nate Goodman 4:26 PM on September 20, 2012
Paul,
Actually I don't think it's a good idea to post Twitter content directly onto LinkedIn. Why? Because LinkedIn users don't want to see hashtags and @mentions. Instead we should be glad Twitter broke up with LinkedIn.
I believe LinkedIn content should be posted separately (although I do understand the need to automate some of these things with your IFTT suggestion).
Facebook 4:41 PM on September 20, 2012
I agree Nate, many of the twitter updates very quite irrelevant.
David Christensen Christensen 4:45 PM on September 20, 2012
This reminds me if the opening scene in 'Saving Private Ryan' where on Omaha Beach on D-Day a medic is trying to treat a wounded soldier who gets shot again - the medic yells out to the German defenders something like 'give me a chance!'
The pace of change in SEO and social media is crippling and there's no way anyone can keep abreast of things in my opinion - and this isn't helped by most experts in the field not dating their posts meaning so often searching on a topic throws up material that is outdated and you end up totally bewildered.
Like the story of the experiment feeding one group of rats a particular breakfast cereal and the other the box the cereal was packed in - with no difference in the condition of the rates after a month - one wonders if the penalty of simply ignoring everything one is told is worse than the penalty of following a small set of advice that turns out to be wrong?
Whether its a rabbit caught in the headlights type of do nothing or a patient sleeper cell waiting for the call to action type of doing nothing, it is starting to look attractive - or am I alone in this?
Atilla Vekony 4:52 PM on September 20, 2012
I've definitely noticed an increase of activity on LinkedIn as well. And, yes, the endless tweets inside LinkedIn were quite annoying.
Anum Hussain 5:18 PM on September 20, 2012
Ridiculously interesting data. Thanks for sharing Corey :o)
Ryan 5:49 PM on September 20, 2012
I hate seeing any sort of feed in LinkedIn and don't pay attention to it. I only see the feed as something for recruiters or those business that deal with people. Content shouldn't be shared across platforms unless it's big news otherwise, who will want to follow each channel when they are all the same?
DeAnna Troupe 5:56 PM on September 20, 2012
This is interesting news to me. I didn't have my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts connected so I guess that's why I didn't notice. I guess I'll have to pay LinkedIn more attention now since it's helping with Facebook.
Classy Catering Creations 6:20 PM on September 20, 2012
We to had noticed a significant increase in our traffic from Linkedin to our Facebook Page as well as our website. At first we were unsure of how we felt about the breakup between Twitter and Linkedin but now that the dust has settled we have to say that the split was a good thing.
Keith Gormezano 1:24 AM on September 21, 2012
It's a better idea when you post to tailor your post to the specific orientation (business vs. personal) and maximum size of posts for the site.
Twitter is 140 characters while Facebook is 500 and LinkedIn is the same as Twitter. I don't know what Google+ or Pinterest are.
DMC in Greece 3:13 AM on September 21, 2012
Quite insightful, thank you for this article.
Biswa Mohanty 5:43 AM on September 21, 2012
thanks for posting
I think it is not good for SMO
Hope to see more posting related to Oklahoma SEO
thanks
Matt Coffy 11:02 AM on September 21, 2012
This is interesting, however not that surprising. LinkedIn is huge for marketing and networking even without (I believe) that much help from Twitter. Facebook is lucky enough to build these traffic considering how its been "struggling" as of late. Thanks for sharing these information, Corey.
Angela Irizarry 11:47 AM on September 21, 2012
Unfortunately Paul, IFTTT is being forced by Twitter to remove all Twitter triggers as of 9/27/12.
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/09/21/why-ifttt-forced-remove-twitter-triggers-red-alert-developers/
Denise Pooler 6:02 PM on September 21, 2012
Thank you for the article and information - continues to support and illustrate the benefit for businesses to continue to be active on LinkedIn.
Rick Noel 10:43 PM on September 26, 2012
Great post Corey. The data and graphics shared were particularly interesting. I find LinkedIn much more beneficial than Twitter, which, due to the Twitter Yo-Yos, can chew up a lot of resource with little ROI as compared to LinkedIn, and I dare say, in the future, Google+. Thanks for sharing.