From Facebook to Linked In – A Slow but Steady Cross Over
A journalist friend of mine recently started his own one man campaign to move from Facebook to Linked In, reasoning behind this being that he did not want the metadata of his life to be available to greedy commercial companies eager to make money from him. Facebook has received quite a beating, possible even a pummeling, in recent months over its privacy policy or lack of it as some would say and it brings us to the “internet age-old” question in this world of reveal all, see all, hear all; do we still have the right to cling on to our privacy rights? This is not a question I am even going to try and answer here as many are better qualified than me to debate this, however as a PR professional what I have noticed is a slow but steady cross over to Linked In amongst dedicated users of social media. Linked In is very much the “steady eddy” of the social networking world, founded in 2006 membership has climbed consistently and steadily, now topping 65+ million users, not quite the stratospheric rise of Facebook and Twitter but one that reflects the niche and specific nature of its audience. While it is billed as purely a business networking/recruiting tool as we all know there is more to business that just the transactional. People make friends, meet partners and lives change through business, the social/human factor is key. In line with this observation more and more business people are using Linked In to form social relationships and exchange information that might not be work –related. Could LinkedIn be transformed into a more holistic site where friends and colleagues meet in cyberspace in a more civilized, less “reveal all” social media environment in which their privacy won’t be compromised?
