Facebook, LinkedIn Should Differ

Mike Sansone’s recent ConverStations post offering Facebook ’s potential to replace LinkedIn as the preferreed professional networking site caught my attention this morning. While I agree with Mike that the potential is there, what I think many professional networkers fail to see in comparissons of social networking  is the need for personal networking and the distinct line between the two most people don’t want crossed.

Facebook and MySpace , in my opinion, will forever be personal networking sites for keeping up with friends, finding those of similar interest, like mind and so on. While I certainly have business contacts as “friends” in both of those environments, they are only professional contacts who know me well enough to understand there is a distinct difference between my profession and my life.

If Facebook evolves into a professional networking site, many users will fear that professional-personal line being crossed and either create second user accounts (good for Facebook) or drop out altogether (bad for Facebook). My gut tells me most people can’t compartmentalize well enought to have two identities, even in cyberspace.

Social networking sites are ever-morphing creatures, fighting to keep membership increasing and advertisers happy. The only people I have found discussing the professional possiblities of Facebook are people who appear to be professional networkers with little interest in the way of networking in an away-from-work environment. Hopefully, Facebook will listen to its users, many of whom use it as a freedom from the constraints of the institutions of life (expectations of job, church, family and so on) and stay true to what has made it.

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