Social Networking with LinkedIn - A Simple But Powerful Tip

by Scott Allen

LinkedIn is a great tool for developing business relationships and building a solid network of professionals around you. It’s well known that you use it to can find business partners, jobs, and a vast array of other opportunities. Building your network with this great tool is not difficult at all, and yet I see many struggle with it because they commit one fatal mistake over and over again, with LinkedIn and other social networks.

The fatal mistake I’m talking about…is to simply use the default invitation message. When contacting someone to invite them to join your network, you should always, always write a personal message stating why you’d like to add them. LinkedIn experts will tell you that this one action will greatly improve your chances of being accepted to someone’s network. If you don’t know them, you may want to consider writing them a message before inviting them to join your network. I for one, am selective about who I let into my trusted business network, and in my opinion you should be too.

Using the default message is simply lazy, and if someone can’t take the extra two minutes to introduce themself, then why should I, or anyone, accept the invitation?

LinkedIn was built to foster personal business relationships, not to make spamming easier. Keep that in mind, and you will have a much better experience in your business social networking efforts.

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