10 Ways To Build Connections On LinkedIn (1-5)

This is part of a continuing series on LinkedIn. Go to the sidebar on this site to select the “LinkedIn” topic to see previous posts. In our last post, we talked about the importance of building a complete and professional profile. Now that we have that goal accomplished, time to find us some connections (smile). Please keep in mind that you can invite literally anyone with an email address to connect with you on LinkedIn. And, like a lot of social media sites, many of those folks will be more than happy to allow that connection. LinkedIn users, however, do tend to be a little more discriminating. LinkedIn is about business, not social, and if I allow someone to connect with me I may, at my discretion, be allowing them at least visible access to some valuable information. Namely, my connections. Please proceed with this in mind as you start to send out your invitations.

LinkedIn connections are accomplished through sending invitations. Here are methods 1-5 of 10 ways to send yours:

1. Make yourself visible. This is a more passive way about letting others know that you are on LinkedIn, what you are about, and may trigger folks to send you an invitation to connect vs. the other way around. Include a link to your LinkedIn profile on all email signature lines and social media sites like Face Book and Twitter.
2. Import your email address lists from web mail (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) and Outlook into LinkedIn. These will become part of your “Imported Contacts” folder. Once you have done this, go to that folder (found on the left side bar of your home page) and see what you have. A LinkedIn icon will appear next to each contact who is already a member of LinkedIn. LinkedIn compares email addresses to actual members. However, just a note, somebody you know could be registered with LinkedIn under a different email address that you do not have in your files. Email addresses and/or existing relationships are the components which drives LinkedIn. More on these later.
3. Send out invitations to connect from your Contact List. Looking at your your imported contacts list, there is a check box next to each name. Check the box and a copy of that name goes into an invitation box on the right. Or, there is even a check box at the top to select all. Click the individual box again to deselect any contact. Once you have selected those who you wish to invite, you do have the option to compose a personalized note to go along with the invitation. LinkedIn has a default invitation that goes something like “Hi Tom, I’d like to add you to my connections on LinkedIn. Craig”. Unless you are under a large time constraint, I would at least recommend that you personalize your message somewhat on a mass invite. Even better is doing each invitation one at a time with a personalized invitation designed for each. Once you have sent your invitations, you wait and see (smile). Each person you have sent to will have the option to accept, decline, or ignore. You will be notified via email of those who have accepted. Please keep in mind that if somebody you invite does not already have an account on LinkedIn, they will need to establish one in order to accept your invitation.
4. Follow LinkedIn suggestions. A box will appear on your LinkedIn home page suggesting folks that you may want to connect with. This feature will also allow you to send invitations directly from this interface.
5. If you are looking for specific people or companies to connect with, LinkedIn has some fairly sophisticated ways to search by: name, company (past or present), school(s) attended, geographic radius, interests, keywords, industry, or groups that they may belong to. You can limit your search to your network only or go system wide. Your network, by the way, includes all LinkedIn members who are either connected directly to you (1st. degree), one of your 1st. degree connections (2nd. degree), or one of their connections (3rd. degree).

Degrees will become important when we look, and ask, for introductions by using the power of our entire network. This will be addressed in our next post which will cover methods 6-10 on ways to build your connections.

Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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