LinkedIn is one of the oldest social media platforms for professionals, yet it is also the one we see being used incorrectly the most. We feel that the main reason is because people don’t know what to do with it or how to use it. We have seen this very often in our social media training sessions and workshops.
So, in this blog post we thought we would talk about connections, who to connect with, how and why – we hope you find it useful!
People You Know
Connecting with people you know is a great idea because you can refer people and make introductions with ease, the odds are also in your favour that the person you know will say yes to your connection request and in turn this will help you build up a solid and successful personal and business networking tool.
However, you need to remember to not just connect with people you know because social media platforms like LinkedIn are all about growing your networking circle and by only networking with people you know you will find it hard to grow your networking circle, but at least you’ll have a strong start!
People You Want To Know
One benefit of LinkedIn is that you can connect with people you don’t know by giving you a brief overview and details about other people on Linked I, you can then use this information to connect with someone while attaching a personalised message that helps them understand why you would like to connect with them. Using LinkedIn for contacting people you don’t know is like giving a digital handshake, similar to a handshake you would give someone at a networking event.
The downside of connecting with people that you know is that you will need to include a personalised message so they know who you are and how they can help and you will need to take the time to build up a relationship which can take a lot of effort and hard work, but if it someone you don’t know but want to then it will be worth the effort.
Everyone
If you were to connect with everyone then you would have a huge network of potential people you could sell to and potentially your posts and updates would be more visible, however there are a few downsides to connecting with everyone.
For example, one of your contacts pay ask you for an introduction and you are unable to do so as you don’t really know the person, you could open yourself up to a lot of spam and fake accounts, which could result in spam to your LinkedIn account, on your news feed (which means you’ll miss the important stuff) and also to your company and own email account.
Another risk of connecting with everyone is that some of the people you choose to connect with could mark you as spam or ‘unknown’ to LinkedIn and this could get you a warning or even banned from the professional social media platform.
If you would like help getting the most out of your LinkedIn then why not give us a call? We would be more than happy to keep your social media platforms updated for you, or we can offer social media training to help you achieve more for your business on LinkedIn.
