Linkedin is used as a numbers game by many people; some people in business feel that the more connections they have the better they look to the ‘outside world’ – but if you want to successfully use Linkedin as an excellent networking tool you need to check who you are connecting with.
As you will know from previous blog posts, when I am sent a connection request I will send a polite email if I do not know the person or have a private message. My messages will look something like the following;
Hello,
I hope you’re having a good week and business is going well; we have a week of training and blogging ahead.
Thank you for your kind connection request however I am unsure if I know you and without a personalised message I am unsure how I can help.
Please let me know the reason for your connection request so we can maybe network further?
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Hazel.
I then await a response, I will send similar messages once or twice a week for a month and then at a month, if they have not responded then I won’t connect with them. If they haven’t used Linkedin for a month then I will not be able to find out more about them or network further.
I think it is important you know who you are connecting with and the response I am going to show explains perfectly my reasoning for this.
Last week I had the following reply to a message like the one above;
Hello Hazel i’m happy to meet a beautiful woman like you..I’m Collins from Houston Texas… I’m 59 years old,working with US Military and you? married but lost my wife three years ago due to cancer ,now i’m single and u?
Perhaps the more concerning part – 23 of my connections were already connected with him; they clearly hadn’t asked who he was or how they could network together – instead they just clicked ‘accept connection’ and moved on.
Our advice is to always check who you are connecting with because they could be watching everything you do and say – and if you don’t know who they are you don’t know what they are doing with that information.
