Making the link with social media

I'm relatively new to LinkedIn. I joined Facebook in college, way back when it was only open to college students, and I'm pretty familiar with it.

LinkedIn—a similar person-to-person connection site—was new to me when I joined HME News.

When I first started on LinkedIn, Liz and I connected my Twitter feed to the account, so people would see my tweets as updates on their LinkedIn homepage.

Alas, Twitter and LinkedIn ended their partnership a while ago.

And still, I'm getting half a dozen LinkedIn friend requests each week—despite the fact that you guys aren't getting news updates from me on there anymore. What gives?

I reached out to my go-to social media guy, Dave Bargmann, to find out just what LinkedIn is good for.

“LinkedIn is a business social network that allows a individual or business to present a professional profile in a manner that you can connect within the HME/DME industry,” he told me.

Providers might set up a business page, almost like a Facebook page, that allow people to keep track of updates, he said. It's also a good platform for discussions and job networking, he said.

It basically offers networking and consulting advice, a place to poll people and get information out—all for free.

After getting some insight from Dave, here's my conclusion:

It seems to me your LinkedIn connections are your business connections—a way to keep in touch without Facebook, which is more for maintaining family and friend connections. As such, users have an easy way to keep in contact without having to be bombarded with personal life posts.

I'm hoping all you guys connecting with me on LinkedIn are using the site almost as a way to "bookmark" me. That way, whenever you have news you want to share, I'll be easy to find.

Get in touch or leave a comment below and let me know why you make connections on LinkedIn. I'd be interested to hear your take.