The Stealth Networker Blog

LinkedIn Invitations: Tell Me Why We Should Connect

Career coach Barbara Safani of Career Solvers tackles the art of the LinkedIn invitation in her terrific post: Make Your LinkedIn Invitations Work For You.

She proposes savvy alternatives to the standard "Since you are a person I trust..." default message that LinkedIn generates. I wish LinkedIn would replace that with "[please type your own message here, doofus]" to give people the hint that they need to do something more than click the "Send Invitation" button.

It really doesn't take much time to craft a personal message, yet more than 90% of the invitations I get stick with the default. What that says to me is that the person either didn't know how to change the message or didn't care to change the message. How does this lack of effort reflect on them and their willingness to invest in building a real relationship with me? Not well. 

Too busy? Well I'm busy too. Why should I bother to click the invitation link, log into my LinkedIn account, read your profile and decide whether or not to accept, when it's faster for me to just hit the delete key?

I always personalize my invitations, both on LinkedIn and on Facebook, even when sending them to people I know. I take the time to tweak the default message, even if just to add "Hope you're well!" at the end. Now, thanks to Barbara, I have some great templates to follow when reaching out to brand new connections.

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Social Media Experts Tell You How - Join Today's Call at 1pm Eastern

Marketing mentor Adam Urbanski has assembled an awesome faculty of social media experts for a series of FREE conference calls this week on how to maximize blogs, Twitter and Facebook for networking.

 

With being on the road, I'm behind in my blog posts (sorry!), so unfortunately, the series is half over, but there's still time to hear Mari Smith TODAY on "How to Create Profitable Relationships Using Facebook" and Nancy Marmolejo TOMORROW on "How to Save Time with an Integrated Social Networking Strategy." I strongly recommend you sign up NOW.

 

My head is still spinning from the first two calls with The Blog Squad and Coach Deborah Micek. Both were jammed with content and sales-pitch free.

 

If you missed any part of the series, or just want to catch everything you missed the first time (like me!), definitely get the VIP package of audio recordings and transcripts.

 

Why try to figure all this stuff out for yourself when the experts tell you exactly what you need to do?

 

Breaking Up with the Lazy Networker

I dumped my first Facebook friend today. With one click, he was off my friends list. Poof! Just like that.

Basically, he was trying to friend everyone and their brother by sending invitations to connect to people in my network (and who knows who else’s) without explaining how he knew them or why he wanted to be their friend.

Two of my friends experienced this and contacted me right away. See, when you invite someone to connect with you in Facebook, they are able to see who is a mutual friend, and since my name was the only one listed, they asked me what I knew about him and why he might want to connect with them.

Not that he looked like a bad guy, but based on his geographic location and the limited info they could see in his profile, it was far from obvious why they should want to connect with him from a business standpoint, much less a friendship standpoint. And he did nothing to enlighten them in his invitation.

I had started to compose a message to this friend suggesting that he rethink his approach to introducing himself to potential connections, but you know what? I just don’t have time to deal with people like that. It was a lot easier to remove him as a friend, and I figured if he showed this little effort at the start of a relationship, it's only downhill from there...so g’bye.

As I say over and over again in my workshops, “Connections happen through conversation.” How much do you think people would want to connect with you if you got to a networking event and just started handing out your business cards without saying a word? Why do you think you’d get a different result online?

Facebook gives you a way to start a conversation with someone you want to bring into your network by writing a personal message with your invitation. It's five extra seconds of your time. Well worth the investment, believe me.

How would you have handled this situation?

Don't Go Any Further On Facebook Without This Class: Tuesday, May 13

Two of my Facebook friends, Nancy Marmolejo of Viva Visibility and Mari Smith, Relationship Specialist and Facebook expert, will hold a special teleseminar, * FACEBOOK FINESSE * on Tuesday, May 13 at 6pm Eastern (3pm Pacific).

Nancy has done a terrific series of video tips on Facebook (she has the cool new FlipVideo too) and Mari is just amazing. She lives and travels around the US and Canada in an RV with her husband, and still manages to keep up with all the conversations on Facebook.

Learn their top tips for finding friends, adding applications, and developing a strong presence that can help you win business.

Click here to learn more about "Facebook Finesse" and to register. Even if you can't make the teleclass live, go ahead and register anyway so you can get a copy of the recording.

Profiting Professionally Through Social Networking

As I'm working on the next issue of my Network NOW! e-zine, about leveraging social networking sites for professional purposes, The New York Times ran an article with some great examples of how some industrious folks have done just that. Read Status: Looking for Work on Facebook.

The trick is to promote yourelf by having all of your relevant information available so people can find you and learn about you...where you worked, where you went to school, etc. This is an obvious "to do" for LinkedIn, but not many people seem to be doing it on Facebook. Put it all down. Why not? It's part of who you are.

If you have an interesting hobby, mention it and put some photos up too if you have them. Do you run marathons? Do you love to scour flea markets for antiques? Tell us.

I finally figured out a way to convey my love of travel with my business of teaching and inspiring people to network more effectively, by adding travel-based video networking tips to my Facebook page. If you're on Facebook, you can watch the Passport to Networking series here. I'll also be adding the videos to this blog, so stay tuned!

There's Treasure in Your Past Connections

Okay, so it's been over a month since my last post, but my book manuscript is finally in my editor’s very capable hands. Her reaction has been positive so far which hopefully means not much re-writing on my part, although I've thought of a couple things I want to add anyway. My brain just won't turn off after writing for 8-10 hours a day for 4+ weeks. Pam Slim of Escape from Cubicle Nation says that’s just the next book wanting to come out! (She submitted a great story for my book, by the way, which I needed to cut down to 250 words, but just couldn’t bring myself to do it.)

As research for my book I've been more active on LinkedIn and Facebook, doubling my connections and friends (if we're not connected yet, look me up), and I even joined Twitter (more about that in a future post). I must say it's been very enlightening.

LinkedIn has been great for getting back in touch with old colleagues. In fact, someone I worked with 20 years ago in the college bookstore at U.C. Berkeley tracked me down (I don't use my maiden name for anything, so I don't even know how he found me), but he's a professor at Georgetown now and will be a great contact for a future goal I'm considering.

I also reconnected with a co-worker at Time Inc., who now has a big new job and recently interviewed a woman who used to work for me, which coincidentally I found out about the other night when this woman and I had dinner. I emailed a strong recommendation through LinkedIn to my former Time Inc. colleague and we'll see what happens.

Last summer I wrote about dipping my toe into LinkedIn a bit more and I'm glad I did. I don't find it as fun as Facebook, or as strangely addictive as Twitter, but that's probably just as well. As with any networking tool--whether it's joining a group, going to events, or participating in social media--the more you invest, the bigger the payoffs are.

The trick is using the right tools in the right combination and in the right amounts. I address this in the book, which I thought would be a brief last chapter with a few words on how to put everything together, but turned out to be pretty comprehensive. Simple, yet comprehensive. One of my key strengths. Hope my editor likes it.