LinkedIn builds community. Facebook breeds cults.

The #RaymondTisdellDuel personal profiles vs company pages battle was tough, but here’s a showdown that’ll be even more divisive: LinkedIn vs Facebook.

You already know where I stand, but I see far too many people – small business owners, freelancers, solopreneurs – burning through their dollars with Facebook advertising. I just can’t keep quiet any longer.

Maybe it works for some, but even if your ads convert users into real-life paying customers, what happens when you turn them off?

The phone stops ringing. Your inbox sits empty. And as work becomes the new religion, you feel disconnected, useless even.

LinkedIn, in contrast, is a no-cost community-building platform that rewards two-way conversation. It’s not about forcefully shoving your service in unsuspecting scrollers’ faces. Nor is it about being fed opinions that mirror your own, sending you on a dangerous downward spiral into an echo chamber.

LinkedIn is about relationships. LinkedIn is about trust.

If you ask me, relationships and trust have far more integrity than fake news, one-upmanship, and cat memes.

It’s all about context

Ever heard of priming? It’s one of our many cognitive biases, and it works like this: exposure to one stimulus influences our response to a second stimulus. The stimulus might be words, an image, a number, a real-life object or a context.

It doesn’t happen consciously, but it does impact our behaviour. When we log onto Facebook, our behaviours and reactions are primed by our opinion of and experience with the platform. If we’re anything like most people, that has little to do with building new business relationships or solving business problems.

“On Facebook, the primary appeal is connecting with family and friends.”

That’s a direct quote from Facebook IQ Researcher Vicki Molina-Estolano, and it’s telling. We use Facebook as an escape from our work lives. And even business opportunities or discussions or special offers that may pique our interest in a different context are tossed in the not-now basket.

LinkedIn is where business happens

LinkedIn calls itself a professional network, making it different to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and other social media platforms.

Users are primed for business. They are in the mindset, tuned-in, and scanning for industry trends, opportunities, and relevant news. They want their problems solved. They want to help others, too. They have their hand outreached, and all you have to do is grab it.

The power of LinkedIn for business is unarguable. That’s why, according to research from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, LinkedIn is the number one social media platform of choice for Fortune 500 companies – and has been for the past six years.

It’s also the favourite among executives publishing professionally relevant content, delivering more than three times the value of Facebook. What’s more, a huge eight in ten social media B2B leads come from LinkedIn, compared to just 6.73 percent from Facebook!

Oh, and did I mention LinkedIn has no barrier to entry and is completely free? I think it is worth repeating.

LinkedIn builds community

The numbers are compelling, but to me, there’s more to success than dollars and cents. Relationships are where the magic truly lies – real, genuine relationships that teach us something new, challenge us, push us to become better accountants, career coaches, software developers, project managers, and LinkedIn profile writers.

I’ve never been a fan of echo chambers, and that’s what Facebook has become. Facebook determines what you will see on a continuous loop until our exposure to opinions, lifestyles, and ideas different to our own fades into oblivion.

That is not a community. That risks becoming a cult.

Where Facebook narrows, LinkedIn broadens. Every time we connect with someone (I highly encourage you to build a considered, and strategic network – a spray-gun approach doesn’t work), we are introduced to new people.

These new people are potential clients, partners, and investors. With time and conversation via posts, comments, and DMs, they become our brethren. We can find a sense of belonging on LinkedIn, which becomes a sort of pandemic-proof watercooler or digital co-working space.

For solopreneurs, portfolio and gig workers, people approaching retirement, people between jobs, and the those of us who are rarely leaving home these days, LinkedIn can help us feel in sync with the business world, part of something bigger.

And, for the many adult men (who have fewer friends than any other group, something that clever content marketer Marc Gaisford spoke about here) who struggle to socialise outside of work, LinkedIn can be a source of connection and comradeship, too.

Nothing to lose, connection to gain

LinkedIn is where business is done, where clients are found and funnelled and projects fine-tuned and funded. It’s where we show – rather than tell – the world that we are the experts via quality, value-add content. Critically, it’s where we find our professional community, a community that’s as diverse as any cross-section of society.

In short, selling on LinkedIn is easy because people are primed to buy. It’s so easy, in fact, you don’t need to spend your marketing dollars on ads. Just show up and be authentic.

Do you agree with my (strong) preference for LinkedIn for business? Or have you had more success on Facebook? Let us know in the comments!

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To find out more about my (Australia-only) LinkedIn profile writing and training check out my new website - https://karentisdell.com/