Social Networks

Thanks for the LinkedIn Invitation: Care to Speak First?

December 6, 2010 By Des Walsh

Would you connect with someone on LinkedIn who does not want to speak with you?

If it weren’t for my own experience over several years, I probably would not think that was a question worth asking.

But consider this. LinkedIn is a professional business networking platform. It is not and never has been intended as a Facebook type platform where people are happy to “friend” just about anybody that comes along.

Skype phone - photo by re-ality via Flickr I shared my views on this in a post here, back in June, on building networks on LinkedIn, not collections where I stated that for first level connections on LinkedIn to happen, I need to first have some form of personal contact and at the very least a conversation via phone or Skype. Meeting up for a coffee would be ok but is not usually an option, as most people who want to connect are not in the same locality as I am and most are not even in the same country.

My approach of requesting at least a phone/Skype conversation is not an extreme position: in fact it is much less rigorous than the approach LinkedIn recommends, which is to only connect with professionals you know well and whom you are generally willing to recommend to your other business contacts.

Basically I go along with that, with some flexibility on a person-by-person basis. My rule of thumb is that if anyone is in my first level of connections on LinkedIn I will be happy to introduce them to my other connections and put in a good word for them, as the saying goes.

So lately, in yet another endeavour to respond helpfully to invitations which come from people with whom I have had no previous connection, I have been offering to have a phone or Skype conversation.

I have sent a version of the following, either via LinkedIn where that is possible (e.g. both members of a group and with direct messaging for the group enabled) or by some other means where I can, e.g. by email if I have an address (the time zone info is included for people in other countries):

I appreciate the invitation to connect on LinkedIn. I’m a bit conservative on that and where I haven’t done business with someone or known them personally “in real life” I like to at least have a chat by Skype or phone. A lot aren’t interested in doing that, which is ok, but if you are up for that I’d love to talk at a mutually convenient time. Time zones can be a challenge, but I’m usually here and available most days from 9 am my time Mon-Fri. That is equivalent to from … your time, Sun to Thurs. Before that time I’m either asleep, or out for a morning walk or having breakfast.

As I say, if you don’t want to chat that’s fine. But I do find it means I have a better connection with those I’m linked to on LinkedIn.

Every good wish

Des

That’s friendly enough, isn’t it?

I have sent several of these out in the past couple of weeks. So far, two responses, and only one of those with a follow-up. For the one who followed up, we had a great conversation by phone and knowing now what the person does I would be very happy to recommend him to others wanting to connect with people in his field.

But I wonder, yet again, how serious were all the other people in their invitations to connect?

And why would I want to be connected at that direct, “1st level” of LinkedIn with someone who a) does not want to speak with me and/or b) does not want to reply to a note like the one above?

Yes, having mutual connections is a start, just as both of us belonging to a particular LinkedIn Group can be a start. But I need to speak in order to help me make up my mind.

Is that not fair and reasonable?

By the way, if you want to use my response note above or a version of it, be my guest: just don’t hold your breath waiting for replies!

Image credit: “Skype phone” by re-ality, via Flickr, Creative Commons license

Filed Under: Social Networks

LinkedIn: Building Networks not Collections

June 1, 2010 By Des Walsh

For first level connections on LinkedIn to happen, I need to first have some form of personal contact

In all the time I’ve been on groups where LinkedIn is discussed, including the Linked Bloggers group I co-moderate, the great staple of discussion has always been what some refer to as the Quality vs Quantity debate.

The discussion revolves around the question of how well you should know someone before you connect with them at the “first level”.

Sometimes the discussion is conducted in fairly either/or terms: either you connect with as many people as possible, or – in the words LinkedIn provides under the box from where you send an invitation – “only invite people you know well and who know you”.

In one of the LinkedIn groups to which I belong, I picked up today on another iteration of this Great Debate. In that instance it was framed in terms of whether you would establish a direct connection with someone you had never actually met (with the implication of having met “in real life” as distinct from just online).

My contribution to that discussion was that I believe there is a sensible line which does not involve either never connecting with anyone you haven’t met or going the open slather of connecting with everyone possible.

I acknowledge the point of view of colleagues and others who argue that you should build the biggest possible network of first level connections, on the basis – as I understand – that this gives you more reach and influence. There are more complex arguments advanced, which I have personally found either too arcane in their theoretical frameworks or simply not convincing enough for me and for where I focus my business activities.

When Bill Vick and I wrote LinkedIn for Recruiting, we devoted several pages to outlining this Quality vs Quantity discussion and included quotes from people with a range of views on the subject. (LinkedIn for Recruiting is now available as a free download.)

My approach is that I check out the credentials of the person wanting to connect and then offer at least a virtual meeting, preferably a Skype call but sometimes I am ok with an email exchange.

Most of the people I offer this to do not even have the courtesy to respond, which to me says that it would be quite unrealistic to see them as potential business connections. And I never cease to be amazed at the number of people with whom I have had no prior contact and who send me a boilerplate “invitation” with no explanatory info or other courtesy included.

Is that how the butterfly feels when the fellow with the net turns up?

That said, I am privileged to be connected to a group of what I would call high quality people, all 644 of them (today’s count), who in turn can connect me to 363,400 other professionals at two degrees removed and then to 12,934,100.

In my book that’s a pretty good network. YMMV

By the way, in the four hours that elapsed since I started drafting this post, my total LinkedIn network grew by another 700 – not quite 100 an hour, but getting there.

Image credit: Butterfly collection at the Beijing Art Museum, photo by Ivan Walsh via Flickr, Creative Commons

Filed Under: Social Networks Tagged With: LinkedIn, Social networking

How Much Do You Want People to Join Your LinkedIn Network?

January 2, 2010 By Des Walsh

Why it makes sense to personalize your invitations to connect on LinkedIn

When I decided after Christmas that I wanted to have a clear inbox on LinkedIn before the New Year arrived, I clearly underestimated the scope of the task.

I finished up spending the better part of a day sorting it all out, dealing with a lot of Pending items, including invitations, from people whose names I had not recognized at the time, or where I had not grasped at the time what our professional connection might be.

Typically, those Pending invitations had used the standard, boilerplate one-liner provided by LinkedIn, the very blunt “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”.

I knew that some, maybe most, would be from people who were simply trying to build as big a list of connections as they could and as fast as possible. But for both social and professional reasons I did not want to consign them all to the archive without checking to see if there was the possibility of a mutually useful connection.

I firmly believe that, if you want to build your professional network on LinkedIn, you should take the trouble to personalize your invitations and not rely on the boilerplate invitation. I also believe that it makes sense to apply the advice of LinkedIn to only connect with people we know and trust. It is a professional network after all.

That one-liner is almost certainly not going to be a problem for your closest professional colleagues and connections, especially if you are new to LinkedIn and they know that.

It could well be a problem for people who don’t know you so well and – hold the ego – might not actually remember you, or remember you enough, at the time of opening the email. If they don’t recognize your name instantly and also know and trust you well enough to accept your invitation unhesitatingly, then some other things could happen, none of them in your interest.

Of the five ways people can respond, including the one you want, “Accept”, the most risky, and the one you really don’t want is “I don’t know” – run up a few of those (five, last time I heard) and LinkedIn will tag you as a spammer: also, you won’t be able to invite again any of the people who chose that option.

By the way, there are plenty who would disagree with my views on this topic, including some close friends and colleagues. I think the protagonists on both sides of the “quality versus quantity” debate on this subject both got tired of the debate a couple of years ago. If you are interested in reading more about that, a Google search on something like “LinkedIn quality vs quantity” will bring up a number of posts from here and there, such as this nicely argued one from Valerie Gonyea: she, like me, is on the “less is more” side of the debate, but sets out the other side’s approach in what seems a fairly clear way.

Back to my day of sorting my LinkedIn inbox.

Some requests were for introductions to other LinkedIn members and where I was not sure that I had dealt with those at the time (LinkedIn’s internal mail management tools are not user-friendly) I sent messages asking how things had worked out and whether at this stage there was any way I could be of help. There were also some inviting me to join LinkedIn groups and I responded to those as appropriate.

The other messages were those pending “one-liner” invitations to connect networks. There were about twenty five of those.

To them I sent a message using variations of the following text explaining my approach to connecting on LinkedIn and inviting conversation (the original version of the text was shared with me by LinkedIn veteran expert Scott Allen a few years ago – although I take full responsibility for what I have done to the original text):

Thanks for inviting me to connect on LinkedIn. I would love to start a dialogue, get to know each other and find out how we might be of service to each other. Feel free to email me at deswalsh@gmail.com and we can get started.

I should explain that I use LinkedIn as they recommend and I find I can manage in a more mutually effective way, and I only connect (create a permanent referral link) with people I know well professionally. In most cases that means we have worked on some kind of project together or have communicated fairly extensively on social networks. At least I like to have had a chat, via Skype (my ID there is deswalsh), so I hope you will feel free to connect there.

If that all works for you, I look forward to hearing from you. In any event, I wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year.

As I say, I sent out about twenty five of those. I stopped when I got back to invitations from mid 2008, figuring that for any before that date (and even some more recent) the inviter will most likely have no recollection of ever having invited me to connect. That was a couple of days ago. I’ve had two responses, and have exchanged interesting emails with those. So far I’ve had no abusive responses, although I have had one or two “how dare you!” type responses when I’ve done this in the past.

Two out of twenty five? Was it worth it? Well, both are interesting people and took the trouble to reply very professionally. I feel good about being connected with them.

Do you have interesting LinkedIn invitation experiences to share, or tips?

Filed Under: Social Networks Tagged With: invitations to connect, LinkedIn, professional networks

Slide Deck on Social Media for Skool Project 2009

September 15, 2009 By Des Walsh

I had been apprehensive in advance of my presentation on social media today at Griffith University, as a contribution to the Skool Project 2009, organised by cricketer and Griffith staffer Michael Jeh and which I posted about earlier this afternoon. After all, I would be presenting to a group of digital immigrants and I was frankly not sure I would be able to say a lot that was news to them.

They took it in good part when I showed them in the slides how I had envisaged them as an audience in relation to me (slide 2), bringing gifts they would know all about.

Skoolproject2009

View more presentations from Des Walsh.

I really don’t know how much I achieved my goal of helping the group see the value of developing their own social media strategy as part of building and caring for their own brand, but I had fun, several people thanked me and a few said they got good value from it.

And I learnt things.

A few things that, if there is a next time with a young group like this, I will want to definitely include:

introducing them to VisualCV – this was a big hit (practical for young people going for jobs)
more on a practical approach to having a blog without it being a burden
explaining and illustrating RSS more and how it can help you manage information and promote yourself
explaining why and how to get your own domain as an investment in your career and your branding, and how you can park it until ready

They liked posterous and I would not be surprised to find that several participants have posterous sites before the week is out.