Social Media

Dealing with Random Linkedin Requests and Linkedin Etiquette

So its nothing new that LinkedIn is an excellent Social Networking tool for the professional and business community. There are so many great things to do with LinkedIn from the ability to sell your professional self in your profile to the ability to make great connections and good contacts in the business world.

Imagine if Napoleon Hill had the ability to just email and send connections via LinkedIn when writing the amazing : Think and Grow Rich (if you haven't read it I suggest you stop reading this and go read it NOW!!!).

He could have simply and easily got in touch with all those business magnates from the comfort of his bed in his pyjama slippers.

However, with most things there are always two sides to the coin
1. The good things you can do with it and
2. The other things you can do with it,which it was never designed for .e.g in Manchester briefcases frequently also double as umbrellas.

Now in the case of LinkedIn it could be that your are ''subjectively Famous'', people have researched you  from another source or heard about you from somewhere else and as you are an authority on a particular subject they want to have you as a contact, anyone who read Lewis Howes's book on LinkedIn would have instantly tried to connect with him (I know I did).

But there is an unwritten etiquette in life that states when you meet strangers for the first time  you should introduce yourself, the same goes for the online world, if I get people I don't know adding me on LinkedIn the first few things I think are:

How do I know you?
or
Do I know you?
or
Did we meet, did I forget, am I a bad person for that ?
or
Wait, do you just want to see my contacts ?

Statistically if a masked person approached, you would more than likely side step such an approach with the finesse of a New Zealand Rugby player 100% of the time, the same goes for the online world.

Photo source

If you're intending to use LinkedIn properly you have to let people know who you are and why you want to connect otherwise they will be very suspicious of who you are and your intentions.

So here are a few tips
1.Have a face
2.Have a properly filled out profile in case I've met you  but my memory has failed me momentarily, all I need to do is see your title, where you're from or what you do and I realise oh ''this is X from Y that I met at Z ''.

Best of all it takes only a few seconds to do so, as the form below makes it easy to put an intro that helps answer the who why and when questions.

However it might not be entirely your fault.

LinkedIn has this new thing where if you search for a person using the LinkedIn search bar and add them it doesn't give you the option to explain who you are as in the form above.

Instead if you go onto their profile and click connect that way it then gives you the option to introduce.

Hence, I would suggest you do that and connect directly from the person's profile and not from the LinkedIn search results.

Moral of the story:
Have a good and properly filled out LinkedIn profile
Connect directly via the persons profile
State who you are
Why you are connecting
OR
Face the wrath of the Delete/Rejection button

by Oyetola Oyewumi