Why you shouldn't connect with strangers on LinkedIn

Posted 05 Jun 2011

LinkedIn is a wonderful tool for meeting new clients and suppliers, and the more connections you have, the better your chances of meeting new clients. Nevertheless, it is important to be selective about who you connect with - in particular, only connecting to people you actually know.

If you belong to a networking group, for example, it might be tempting to connect to everyone in that group, even if you have never met some of them, or to accept as connections friends-of-friends who have asked to be linked to you. But LinkedIn works because of the personal element: you know you can rely on your friends' recommendations, and approach your friends to introduce you to valuable business contacts, precisely because you know them.

If you don't know the person you are connected to, they are nothing better than a cold contact. Would you ask someone you don't know to introduce you to someone else you don't know? And how would you know you can rely on their recommendations?

At the very least, you should have personally met everyone with whom you connect on LinkedIn. If someone in a group you attend , or a second-degree acquaintance, wants to become your contact, why not organize a one-to-one, so that you can establish whether this person is a useful contact for you?

When I go to networking meetings, and meet contacts with whom I would like to stay in touch, I always ask whether it is okay to connect with them on LinkedIn. I then ask for a follow-up meeting so I can get to know them, and their business, a little bit better.

LinkedIn is about the quality of the contacts, not the quantity. Your LinkedIn contacts are potentially your sales team. At the end of the day it is better to have 200 reliable contacts who know you properly than 500 contacts who are strangers.

Tags: LinkedIn, social media

Posted in LinkedIn

5 comments

Jeremy Freeman wrote:

Spot on Danny. The number of connection requests that I get on a daily basis when I've never met or communicated with the person never ceases to amaze me. I politely ignore those requests. In my case I have over 500 connections and I can honestly say that I've met over 80% and communicated online with the rest. A tip, every time you take a business card from a networking meeting - don't leave them on your desk, request the connection via LinkedIn and explain where you met them. I used to have thousands of cards strewn all over the office - now LinkedIn is my database!

Sunday, Jun 5, 2011 at 15:14

Doug Mather wrote:

Hi Danny

I have to say I completely disagree with you on this.

Whilst I'm not suggesting you should necessarily connect with everybody without a thought, I do think that only connecting to people you know is massively limiting in today's interconnected world.

If I had done that I would never have built some of the really great and mutually beneficial relationships that I now have with people all over the world.

I tend to follow the advice of highly regarded social media "guru" Chris Brogan on this - "Connect with anyone; but recommend only people you can vouch for." Check out his Guide to Using LnkedIn Effectively.

Also, as I now have links on more or less all my web presences inviting people to connect with me, it would be a bit rude to say "No" when they try.

Thursday, Jun 9, 2011 at 16:19

Alison Withers wrote:

I have mixed feelings about building up a huge number of contacts.
I think the point is what you are doing it for. Peter obviously needs to cast his net wide for Foundation East, not only to attract investors/angels but also so that small businesses know there is financial help available out there from places other than banks!

For me the number of contacts I have is about quality rather than quantity. As a result of sticking with business breakfast networking for several years now I have developed collaborations with several other synergistic small businesses which have been of benefit to us all. It means we can combine for bigger projects and also feed leads between each other.

But it all depends on having got to know each other, how each of us works, and proving that each of the members of the collaboration can do the quality work reliably and on time.

In the end those relationships take time and commitment and trust and I wonder whether it's possible to do this with a large number of contacts and still have time to do any actual work!!

Friday, Jun 10, 2011 at 12:21

Andy Smith wrote:

This is very interesting, the only way I know of you is because of Linked In, I saw your profile and wanted to connect. The main reason is because I believe you could be extremely beneficial to some of my clients. If you get an invitation check out the business, if you could work together then link up. As the saying goes it isn’t rocket science, if you don’t want to do any business with the person then decline.

Sunday, Jun 12, 2011 at 22:33

Robert Partridge wrote:

Well I have a large number of contacts and enjoy expanding my connections, especially those directly connected to my industry. My frustration is with the people who ask to connect with me but then never do so! I accept the connection....I wait....I wait and I wait, but nothing, not thank you for connecting, not hello I am xyz from abc NOWT!

Now I can accept someone introducing themselves and trying to sell their product or service to me, but imagine going to a Network breakfast having someone come up to you give you their name and shaking hands and then spending the next hour staring blankly at you....that I am afraid is the feeling you get from someone who connects but is not willing to communicate!!

Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 at 09:36

Boxes with an asterisk * next to them are required items

Recent Blog Entries

Categories

Blog Archive

Why you shouldn't connect with strangers on LinkedIn

Leave a comment