So What's In It For Me?

Posted by Sarah Mitchell on 24 January 2011 | 10 Comments

Tags: LinkedIn, Social media

Last year I wrote a post titled, 6 Reasons for Refusing LinkedIn Invitations. It garnered more comments than any other post I've written. It continues to attract decent traffic each month. The post describes my policy of only connecting with people I know. While it's the most popular entry on my blog, I'm beginning to wonder if I haven't made myself clear.

I'm still getting invitations from total strangers. The requests come from all corners - readers of my blog, people in agreement with a comment I've left on another post, and members of shared groups to name a few examples. I've even had people say they want to connect with me because I wrote that post. What?

The usual suspects
I used to reply to every invitation with an honest explanation about why I was declining. Several months ago, pressed for time with multiple deadlines, I quit responding and let the notices pile up. This weekend as I started going through each request, I became increasingly annoyed. Many of the invitations fell into the following categories:

• People with very few connections, usually 10 or less
• People with hundreds of connections
• Professions requiring large networks to achieve their goals, e.g. real estate
• People located in emerging markets
• People entering my field of work with no experience of their own

So what's in it for me to connect with these folks? Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch. And you know what's particularly annoying? Most of them don't try to convince me otherwise. Rarely do any of them include more than the text generated by LinkedIn. The only time I would find that acceptable is when it's someone I've known and worked with for years and years "“ someone who doesn't need to say more because I'm so intimate with their professional credentials.

No comfort from strangers
Why do I find invitations from strangers so irritating? I view LinkedIn as a valuable tool. My connections record years of experiences and hard work. I'm not about to cheapen my network or my reputation by hooking up with every opportunist or eager beaver capable of performing an advanced search. LinkedIn is meant to reflect your work experience and reputation. It is not designed as a tool to construct your professional persona. Too many people are looking at it as a convenient way to inflate their professional standing.

A welcome change
Do I refuse every invitation extended by someone I don't know? Of course not. Several people in my current network were unknown to me when we first made contact in a social media channel. In every one of those cases, the invitation was written in a way that demonstrated a mutually beneficial opportunity. Most of them didn't start as a connection but as an invitation to explore possibilities for future work together. In other words, even though the contact came through an online tool, the intent was nothing more than good old fashioned professional courtesy.

The Take-Away
Next time you're ready to fire off an invitation on LinkedIn consider the person you're targeting. What do you offer them? Are you trying to boost your profile or are you genuinely looking for ways to increase both your opportunities? If you really want to improve your chances of acquiring a new connection, make a case for yourself and attach an offer of a face-to-face meeting in your invitation. The growth of your network may slow down but the improved quality will be of far more benefit in the long run.

What do you think? Do you accept LinkedIn invitations from total strangers?

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Image Credit: nan palmero, on Flickr