Every day, I watch as small handfuls of people who supposedly want to connect with me online thoroughly and entirely waste their opportunity to do so. They do this — most notably — in the form of terrible LinkedIn requests.
Although some percentage of the dozen or so LinkedIn requests I receive every day are likely spambots and/or small children with no understanding of the interwebs, I would venture to guess that at least some of the people who request to connect with me on LinkedIn actually want to do just that — connect with me on LinkedIn.
However, their unpracticed actions fail miserably.
Cringing, I spend likely no less than 1 minute and 45 seconds (or more!) each and every day deleting terrible LinkedIn “requests”, wishing and hoping that someone - somewhere – could teach folks to use LinkedIn appropriately. At the very least, I reason, this would alleviate my own feelings of despair at the current abilities of my fellow humans to forge connections online.
Are you using LinkedIn to try to connect with someone you want to get in touch with?
Here are three things you must do if you want them to actually accept your LinkedIn Connection Request:
- Personalize the request by typing in actual content. The number one most miserable fail of would-be LinkedIn connectors the world over is their inability to remember to type in actual, original content. Do NOT use the preset “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” You will be deleted. Say something. Anything. Please. Even if you think they know you because you met once five years ago in a dark alley.
- State the reason you want to connect. Personalizing doesn’t mean simply rewriting “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” as “Hi it’s Jamie — I’d love to chat about your fascinating work!” Personalizing does mean writing a specific reason you want to connect and what you aim to gain from the connection. This could mean the good friend-of-a-friend standby request: “Sarah and I had drinks the other night and she said you were my LA dopellganger! Just wanted to say Hi, and would love to meet if you’re ever in town!” Or, it could be a productive specific-ask-to-a-stranger-request: “I heard you speak last week at an event and had an idea about how I could feature your content on my blog. Could I connect with you to send you a quick email about my idea? If not — here’s my email just in case: XXX(at)gmail.” (Note how you need to tweak how you write the address to get it to pass the LinkedIn “no web address” filter.) Either way — state why you want to connect.
- Provide a reference to you outside of LinkedIn so someone can look you up before accepting your request. Although I am so starved for worthwhile LinkedIn asks that I would likely accept any LinkedIn invitation from someone who is at least attempting to personalize their own message (!) don’t use me as your barometer. If you were trying the specific-ask-to-a-stranger-request as in the example above (“I heard you speak last week at an event and had an idea about how I could feature your content on my blog. Could I connect with you to send you a quick email about my idea? If not — here’s my email just in case: XXX(at)gmail”), you’d get even more mileage (and dramatically up your chances of having your connection request accepted) if you provide your website so the person can look you up before accepting your request. Although LinkedIn prevents you from writing in your web address — I’m sure you can be creative in typing it out;)
This is a great post, Claire. I’ve actually connected with a few strangers on LinkedIn recently because I couldn’t find direct contact info for them any other way, and needed to reach out about a project I’m working on that they will likely be part of. So you’re totally right on about the customized/personalized request!
On that, here’s a short addendum that might be helpful to your readers: when sending a LinkedIn request to connect, if you do not know the person already, you will either have to (a) select “other” and provide an email address for that person, or (b) lie and say you are colleagues or friends. I do not like (or do) the second option, but thought I’d mention it anyway. (In fact, when someone sends me a LinkedIn request and claims to be a colleague or friend, but we’ve never met before, I am immediately put off. I love connecting with strangers via social media, but as soon as someone misrepresents her/himself, I’m suspicious of their character and not sure I want to connect. Well, maybe that’s taking it a bit too far, but it is a turn off.)
Also, when sending requests following your excellent advice here, folks will find that LinkedIn does not allow you to include an email address or URL in your request. You’ll have to be tricky about it and do the ol’ yourname(at)yourwebsite(dot)com and www(dot)yourwebsite(dot)com, which works like a charm (even if it does take up precious real estate in the limited characters allowed request).
Cheers!
Totally true on the being tricky thing — both in misrepresenting in as “colleague” and in the way you have to “cloak” your email address…
Clare, I owe you an apology for hitting the “invite to connect” on my LinkedIn mobile app and sending you another spam invite. I really enjoyed this post and I love the support you give to new users like me. I loved Twitter for Good and I’m working to apply the principles to provide meaningful content in the years to come. It’s great to learn from someone with a generous spirit. I hope my future attempts to follow your instructions go better that my attempt to connect with you in LinkedIn. Thanks for listening!
No worries! And after reading this I accepted;)
Totally true on the being tricky thing — both in misrepresenting in as “colleague” and in the way you have to “cloak” your email address…
I read your article on the Huffington this morning and wanted to say thanks. I’m a radio brand builder who is always looking for ways to network. I tried to send you a connect request, tried the honest way and chose other. LinkedIn asked for your email which I don’t have so i chose I don’t know Claire and wrote you the following brief note -
Claire – I read your article on the Huffington this morning and wanted to say thanks. I’m a radio brand builder and would love to connect. If not here’s my email if you need a good radio guy michael.acord(at)cumulus(dot)com
- Michael Acord
LinkedIn wouldn’t send it – any advice?
Dear Claire
Loved your recent post, How to connect (with anyone) on linkedin, I’m going to share it along with others with several of my linkedin Groups. Would you like to connect with me here on linkedin?
If not_ here’s my email just in case (M.Majmooeh2013@Gmail.com)
sincerely yours,
Mehdi
Dear Claire,
I just came across your post and want to thank you for your helpful suggestions.
Like Mike, a reader that posted a comment back in August, I too have encountered the problem of having to provide an e-mail address when I choose the option Other and I don’t have the person’s e-mail address. Any advice on this?
Hi Claire,
Thanks for your interesting article re Linked In. I’m regularly astounded by the amount of junk I end up with – if people go to the effort to track you down, why don’t they go to the effort to say something that will attract your attention!
A few months back I reached out via Linked In to a group of women that were recognised in London as leaders in the City, see article here: http://www.citywomen.co.uk/?p=woawinners12
I sent them each a congratulatory message and invitation to connect with me on Linked In, being careful to follow the rules you reiterated in your article: write your own message, make it personal and show them how to get in touch. I never heard back from any of them in the form of a message but one did accept my connection. Without stalking them and being pushy I’m not sure there is anything else I can do. I made sure to keep my intro brief and upbeat but to do so again might seem a bit odd.
Do you have any tips on how to handle the above or is it time to move on?
Thanks and best regards,
Joanna