You’re invited to a networking breakfast for managers and executives in your sector, would you go? If you did go, would you expect only to meet up with people you already know?
Probably not, the purpose of network events is to meet and possibly form relationships with other professionals, to discuss and perhaps create business opportunities to share information and knowledge with like-minded others.
Yet when clients talk to me about LinkedIn networking, a common refrain is ‘People I have never heard of have invited me to connect!’ LinkedIn is not your Facebook profile that you share with family and friends. It is a business networking site and it is likely that people you do not know want to connect with you because they are in your location, your business sector, they are looking for a business person with your skills to do business with.
(Apparently, they could also be wanting a date, or they might tell you that they are a mining magnate from Texas, I ignore these ones).
You don’t have to connect with everyone who asks, but it is common sense to look at their profile and see if you may have some synergy before saying – I don’t know them – DELETE.
For those who are put off by connection requests from people they don’t know, (and neglect LinkedIn as a result), they are also leaving an incomplete/outdated profile there for the world to see. They are ignoring connection requests that may be useful to them and may be from people they do know and they are not learning from sector news, whitepapers, posts.
A networking disaster! Sometimes from business people who know and understand the value of networking.
If you have a LinkedIn profile that you are embarrassed about, you would like a LinkedIn profile and/or training on how to use LinkedIn to your advantage we have a special available until December 9 2017. (And why not connect with me on LinkedIn?)
