Here at Creative Content Company we think Linkedin is an excellent networking tool and can gain you lots of work, but only when it is used the right way; when it is used incorrectly it can be very damaging to a business and brand.
In the past we have given various examples of Linkedin Done Wrong, and once again, we have another example for you.
As you will know from previous blog posts on this topic, we have a standard style of email we send out to connection requests that we don’t know and it looks something like the following;
Good Morning (insert name), Brief overview of weather / what we’ve been doing, etc, followed by a thanks for the connection request, an explanation of not knowing who they are / how we can help and ending with which them a good week / weekend ahead and hoping they contact us back soon.
We recently received a very typical response of someone that does not know how to use Linkedin or how to represent their brand to the best of their ability. The response was a thank you for connecting (even though our email stated we had not connected) and this was followed by over 300 words of what they do (this was copied from their About Us Page on the website).
Not only was it an annoying copy and paste, there were services that as a business or personally I would never need and this could clearly be seen by taking more than one second to look at my Linkedin profile or company website.
I think at this point, before I go on, it is important to note that December has been extremely busy for the team here at Creative Content Company and we have been volunteering with Peterborough Light Project so we have a lot more to do that usual – I hope this will go some way in explaining my response, to which he has not yet replied to, but has read;
Hello Ben,
Thank you so much again for the connection request and for the formal and in-depth introduction of your business and services; I am sure you have looked at my profile and know that my business would have no need for your services so I can only presume you need help creating website content, recreating the About Us page (which was copied for your pitch) to make it more engaging or maybe social media management training?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Hazel.
Please understand that this is not normally our attitude, but there does come a point when you receive around 15 connection requests a day and you just think ‘enough is enough’. It takes a few seconds to check who you are connecting with; take the time to look at them and have a conversation before you shove your business down their throats!
