Don’t Send Me Generic Invites On LinkedIn

Some 4 months ago I wrote about what kind of network you want on LinkedIn and why I just deleted 10% of my network. Whether you are very active or not on LinkedIn you will from time to time receive connection requests from people you don’t know and have never heard of. Even worse they might be asking you to be part of your network with the classic “Hi XXX, I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn”. There are also those who just doesn’t get the message and keep trying to connect with you even though you have declined multiple times. The reason I pick this up again is I recently read a blog post by Kevin Kermes, Founder of All Things Career saying that you could use a script to add millions of connections in a very short time frame. It’s a simple concept really. You just start to add connections from the “People you may know” section on LinkedIn. The script will automatically be sending invitations and because most people either don’t have an active LinkedIn strategy or they see you have some connections in common they just blindly accept. Your network will start to fill up very fast while LinkedIn just keeps feeding you connections. Brilliant really, at least if your goal is to add as many connections as possible as you never know from whom your next opportunity will come from.

What’s your networking strategy?

If you are a (LION) i.e. LinkedIn Open Networker this is a strategy made in heaven, but personally I find it quite appalling. To be honest of course I don’t know all my connections on LinkedIn personally either, but I would say that there is at least a genuine reason behind why I am connected to 99% of them. What I do each time I receive a generic request from someone I don’t know is simply to reply to them “Hi XXX, Thank you for your invitation to connect. As we don’t know each other may I ask why you want to be part of my network?” Two out of three don’t reply to my message and their request will be deleted. Clearly they are just trying to increase the size of their network and have no specific intentions with having me in their network. Just think about, if a total stranger walks up to you on the street and asks if you want to be friends? When you ask why you don’t get a reply other than you just looked like someone I wanted to be friends with. Would you accept such a friendship request? I doubt it so why would you act differently on social media? What is your networking strategy?

How to connect with me

To be perfectly clear I don’t mind having a large LinkedIn network at all, but I want my connections to have a purpose or at least some sort of mutual recognition of why we are connected. In the past two weeks, I have received 11 invitations to connect: 3 colleagues, 1 old classmate, 1 with a personalized request and 6 generic requests. Of the generic requests, only 2 replied to my message which makes 36% of the invitations I received I would consider as spam. I am sure the same pattern would be seen if I included more weeks so while this is definitely not a scientific investigation there is clear evidence that many people on LinkedIn are only networking to create a big network and not be of any benefit to their network. As I said I am all for having a big network, but if you want to connect with me you have to give me a reason. The only one giving me a reason in the first attempt this week made reference to my most recent blog post and whether or not I would be interested in participating in a conference on the topic. Unfortunately the schedule didn’t fit, but it gave me the opportunity to post a guest blog in relation to the conference. While every connection doesn’t have to bring such concrete results, I at least want you to reply to me when I ask why you want to connect. Of the two that did one also made reference to some of my writing whereas the other couldn’t really give any specific reasons. For the sheer fact of responding though I included the person in my network.

How to stay in my network

From time to time I do evaluate if the people that are now part of my network still are there for valid reasons. If not, you will most likely be deleted again just like the time I deleted more than 10% of my network. So how do I do this evaluation? I ask myself if for the connections I don’t know if we had any interaction ever since we connected. Did the person like or comment on my content? Did the person invite me to read his or hers content or asked me for introductions to other people in my network. If we had no contact at all then probably there is no reason for this person to be part of my network or the other way around. For me, it’s all about making genuine connections, or at least as genuine as they can get online, and not so much about just having a big network. I am following a very specific strategy on LinkedIn which so far has yielded quite some good results and I am not about to give that away for free to just about anyone!

What do you think? How many generic connection requests have you accepted without further questioning? Do you also delete connections from your network from time or are you just about as passive as one can be on LinkedIn?

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For more stories about networking or personal branding please also read below blog posts.

5 Insights From A Year Of Blogging

Why I Just Removed 10% Of My Network

How To Avoid Ending Up Single In Networking

How To Crowdsource Your Personal Development

7 Steps To Improve Your Personal Brand

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Regional Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line North Europe and is working with transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. Anders has participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. He would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption.