Just how many is too much?
As my profile at LinkedIn grows and I remain active on the forums and the Q&A section, I receive constant invitations to other social and business networks. I often wonder what the thinking is behind this? Perhaps it’s because I am seen to be so active.
I’ve elected to make LinkedIn my preferred business networking tool and I am aware there are heaps out there. But how do you choose and where do you draw the line? There are a number of things you need to weigh up:
- How long has the network been around?
- Are there people you know and trust already connected?
- What have you read about the network - has the information been worthwhile?
- How much time will you need to spend on a daily or weekly basis to make the network work for you?
- How much time can you afford if you join more than one network?
- What is the benefit of joining more than one network if you’re just going to keep inviting your existing contacts to each network? Or, are you separating the groups and by what process?
For me I have a business network and I do belong to a social network reserved for friends and family - a small number of people will be in both but I make sure I don’t blur the lines and keep business for business and social for social.
It stuns me though that when I accept an invitation from someone I don’t know personally at LinkedIn that often I will then get a number of invitations from the same person for several other networks. I don’t get that. I do say on my profile I’m not accepting invitations from other networks but perhaps they didn’t get that far in my profile (assuming they have looked at it or read it). And the other day I received an invitation for a brand new network from someone who isn’t directly connected to me at LinkedIn but is a second level connection. I didn’t know why they were but because they sent it to my linkedin email address I knew where it had come and was able to look them up. But I don’t understand why they haven’t sent a linkedin invite? I’m still waiting…
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