Why your LinkedIn Network is sometimes not helping (or better, willing to do so...)

I am a strong believer in the power of good networking, especially over LinkedIn. Over the past years I built up a strong "collection" of contacts and would believe that I am not just after "numbers" (LION anyone?), but rather also try to evaluate  how I can be of value to the other side of the connection request. E.g. recently I posted in this context about not accepting anymore connection requests from people with obvious fake degrees (unfortunately this is becoming more of a problem nowadays). But sometimes I come across some new shocking approaches to LinkedIn networking that make me wonder: Are we sometimes taking too much of an easygoing approach?

Not sure if I am overreacting in this case, but here is the situation:
I received this morning an invite from a "Research Associate" employee of a well reputed Customer Research company. As this is pretty much in line with some of my work activities, a welcome connection to build a stronger community.

However, virtually within 2 minutes of accepting the request, a message with the following question was sent by the individual:

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Hi sir,
I need ur help, business intelkigence leader and cost controlling leader is they doing the same activity or different.
I need ur advice about this. Kindly Please solve my confusion

Sent from LinkedIn for Android  
https://lnkd.in/android
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Now, call me old-fashioned, but I do have some problems with this.

1) Lack of basic grammar, spelling and sentence construction
I do understand that sending messages from an Android Phone can be challenging (and anyone with experience fighting the ridiculous spell check changes on iPhones will likely agree with me). However, if this is truly important enough to be sent immediately via cell-phone, why not rather call, or better, wait until reaching a proper work area and equipment? English is not my mother tongue either (and as such I have my fair share of mishaps), but I believe some basics should be covered at the least. Reading the message and spell checking it before sending should be a bare minimum that can be expected.

2) Language Level & Context
If contacting someone for the first time, especially with such an apparently important question, I would think a more structured, coherent approach might be in order. Many experts I have come across over the past years have not yet adopted to the Web 2.0 language patterns employed to reduce texting efforts and cope with space restrictions (do emojis count towards the 140 character restrictions?). If a mail is sent (and yes, LinkedIn messages are kind of an email...), please provide context and keep a professional language level that is different to what you might generally use on Twitter or Facebook (there is no character limit on an email).

3) Asking the right people in your network (or should you even ask in the first place)
I certainly do have an opinion on the difference between Business Intelligence and Cost Controlling, however, neither key words are part of my profile nor are they mentioned specifically as my experience areas. I have to admit that it flatters me that someone I just got in contact with 2 minutes earlier already considers me such an expert to comment on this topic, especially as it seems to be of very high importance to the person to send it immediately from a phone. 
But then again, if a person is supposedly working as a Research Analyst for a well reputed company in that field, and has a MBA (even though this often does not mean much nowadays), should this person not be able to search for the info quickly on Google and/or Wiki and be able to digest the information accordingly and come up with an answer himself? Or in other words, are we making it too easy to provide information on things that one could rather research himself (especially if this is in line with the daily work I guess the profile suggests)?
Do not get me wrong, I love helping people and coach/mentor them through research (I even made this part of my paid profession...), but I also believe now that pushing back on some requests (and I did with a rather cheeky message, sorry for that...) could be more help to the individuals rather than just freely providing everything on the silver platter.

4) State why you want to connect (aka stop connecting for marketing and/or recruiting purposes only...)
Unfortunately the number of connection requests from Recruiters that want to bypass the LinkedIn Recruiter solution (and associated cost) or Marketing/Business Development professionals that, once connected, start bombarding me with mass mailers or product messages on LinkedIn, have significantly increased over the past month. As such I started to flat out reject any such requests (based on Job Title that is).
I know I am in some cases missing out, but quite frankly, whatever happened to the good practice of adding a reason (aka message) to the invite request? Yes, no message is better than the previous standard LinkedIn message of "Because you are a person I trust..." (which was stupid since how should someone not even connected yet already know to trust me...), and I believe LinkedIn makes it sometime all too easy to connect to someone with just a click of a button, but if someone takes the time to include into the connection request a message how we met and what he/she expects from the connection, it clearly sends a strong message of valuing the connection with me (and almost certainly gets a positive reply).

Some of you might not agree with all the points above, but then again, everyone has different approaches. I just believe some basic etiquette, proper language and structure can go a long way and significantly improve your chances of getting help and connect with the right people. Please keep LinkedIn professional, it is not Facebook...

Marc Karschies is Managing Partner at "Karschies, Ceron & Alred Consultants" (KCA Consultants), a boutique Customer Experience and Service Quality Management consultancy and training company in Dubai.
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