Ever since LinkedIn opened up its application programming interface (API) platform to developers in November 2009, new social media enhancements have been created to fortify networking connections. One social media partnership in particular is the one between LinkedIn and Twitter. The two platforms have continued to join forces and collaborate on projects to make user interactions even better for the rest of us.

Twitter Feed

As far as integration goes, LinkedIn and Twitter are doing a commendable job on getting things to blend together smoothly and seamlessly. Most LinkedIn users are well-aware of the ability to link Twitter to their LinkedIn profiles. The result is a steady stream of tweets that keep your connections and profile viewers apprised of what you’re up to in the Twitter-verse.

Tweet & Post Control

In addition to joining your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts together, tweeters have the option of selecting which tweets they’d like to feature on their LinkedIn profiles. Filtering tweets is a great way to categorize and control personal and business related tweets instead of flooding your LinkedIn account with all things tweeted. For tweets to LinkedIn, visit your Twitter settings page and select or deselect the option to post tweets that contain the hashtags #in or #li.

Conversely, you can decide what updates to share from LinkedIn to your Twitter account by visiting the ‘Home’ tab on your profile and checking the box next to the Twitter icon in the Network Activity window.

Company Buzz & Tweets Applications

Another new pair of features that LinkedIn has is Company Buzz and Tweets. The Company Buzz is an application that lets you track tweets about companies, products and people from your LinkedIn page, as well as historical data and trends. This could be a good thing to do if you’re keeping tabs on your competition or interested in new career opportunities within your industry.

The Tweets application is kinda like having a mini-version of Twitter built into LinkedIn. Instead of having to login to your Twitter account, you can tweet away from right from your profile.

More Integration Tools With Tweets

Today, LinkedIn and Twitter unveiled their newest feature which is admittedly impressive and long overdue. By installing the Tweets application, LinkedIn users will now be able to find relevant professionals to follow and find and keep track of their LinkedIn connections on Twitter. Install the Tweets application first and then use the ‘More’ link from the menu at the top of the website to find everyone that you’re connected to and start following.

The new module ‘Connections to Follow‘, has also been added to recommend new people for you to follow based on your LinkedIn connections. Furthermore, a ‘Connections‘ tab is visible in the Tweets app that shows you all your LinkedIn connections who have added Twitter accounts to their LinkedIn profiles. From here you can even see who you are and are not following via Twitter and choose whether to follow or unfollow. Hover your mouse over their Twitter ID and get a glimpse of their last tweet.

All of these new additions are fantastic, but the real crème de la crème is being able to save your LinkedIn connections as a dynamic Twitter list. LinkedIn creates a private Twitter list from the connections that you choose to save to it. Visit your Connections tab, look at who has a Twitter account, add to the list and you’re done. Even better, LinkedIn keeps this private list up-to-date by adding and removing accounts based on your LinkedIn connections each day.

Get ‘Er Done

To take advantage of these fantastic features, head over to LinkedIn and install the Tweets application and Company Buzz to your profile. Please let us know what you think of the new features. Happy connecting

Tags: how to, linkedin, Social Media, Tools, Twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.