Happy Birthday - Done Right!

How to Actually Tell Someone Happy Birthday on LinkedIn…And Why

LinkedIn, it’s the business to business and professional network online. LinkedIn has close to half a billion users. These are real users, by the way (LinkedIn is diligent at policing fake accounts.) This means that somewhere around one out of twenty people on the planet has a LinkedIn account. In other words, if you’re online to sell products or services, make business connections, find funding, or just expand your professional network for future use, LinkedIn is the place to be.

With all of that said, you would think that most business professionals are adept at using LinkedIn for peer to peer networking. Sadly, that’s not the case! There are several examples of this, one of the most egregious, however, is the act of telling people “happy birthday” through LinkedIn’s notifications feature.

If you log in to your LinkedIn account, you’ll see a notifications icon. This feature tells you who’s done what that might interest you. If someone shares one of your status updates, you’ll see a notification about that. If someone’s changed jobs or has a new position in their company, you’ll see that as a notification, also. And…since you filled in your birthday when you opened your LinkedIn account, you’ll see who has had a birthday over the past few days.

One of your main goals on LinkedIn should be to build your network. One of your other important goals should be to interact with this network. So, it makes sense that telling someone happy birthday would be a good thing to do…and it is! Except most people do it wrong!

When you click on your notifications tab, currently located at the top in the main navigation bar on LinkedIn, you’ll get a list of everything of interest that’s happened with your connections and your updates. You’ll see who’s liked and shared your posts. You’ll see who’s had a job change, and you’ll also see who’s having a birthday. Since one of your main goals should be to interact with more of your connections (and also with people who aren’t your connections), birthdays provide a golden opportunity to do just that.

There’s a right and a wrong way, however, of telling someone Happy Birthday on LinkedIn. When you click on the notification of who’s having a birthday, the message box will appear with a Happy Birthday message pre-filled in. Please, resist the urge to just hit Enter and use that pre-filled in birthday message! Why? Well, everyone else is doing just that. So, if you use the message LinkedIn provides, you’ll just look like every other lazy person out there. You won’t stand out. You’ll look like you don’t really care enough about the person to tell them Happy Birthday in a more meaningful way.

The antidote to this is to do the following. Click on the person’s name or picture and look briefly at their profile. Pick out something interesting you can mention in your birthday message. You can always reference where they work, or where they live. “How’s IBM been treating you?” or “How’s life in Des Moines?” sounds so much better than the generic birthday message. Do this, and you’ll open up a lot more meaningful conversations with people much faster. Conversations that will often lead to sales!

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Hey folks, Bill Scott here. I hope you enjoyed my 2nd "LinkedIn Tips." I have plans for more, I hope you will watch for them and spread the word. Feel free to share with your connections.

This is a great platform for business professionals. Also, under utilized by most. That's an opportunity lost. LinkedIn is business networking at its' best.

If your profile is incomplete or just empty take a few minutes and fix it.

A few ideas...

Put up a background banner promoting your company or yourself.

Build a brief , informative headline

Put in your contact information(if you don't want people to contact you, why are you here?)

Take some time and put up a good profile summary. Write it in the first person, let it tell your story.

If you're too busy or just don't want to do it yourself, contact me. I'll be glad to help you or I'll even do the work for you.