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LinkedIn is a marvellous way to grow your online business network and get to know people from all over the world. But there are also very quick ways to annoy people as well. And one of those ways is right at the beginning of the process – inviting others to connect with you.

LinkedIn encourages you on your homepage to connect with others you know but they don’t really give you much information on the ‘how-to’ process in doing this. So I want to save you some angst and help improve things for you.

When you put in someone’s email address and name and click on that button to invite them, what happens? Well, if you’ve not actually explored what the invitation says (and many don’t in the early stages) you might be surprised to find that this is all it is:

Kathie,

I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

-Steve

Nothing else. Now, when I receive that invitation it doesn’t tell me much. I can go to that person’s profile because it is linked to the invitation but if I don’t know that person, or don’t remember them, it’s not going to tell me why they want to connect. And even if I do know them, I still don’t know the reason. Having received one of these invitations proves to me very quickly that the sender hasn’t read my profile.

I do have a request on my profile that I don’t accept ‘canned’ or ‘blanket’ invitations (of which the above is definitely an example) and prefer to receive an introduction and reason for connecting. I don’t want to become just another number to people.

It’s amazing but one of two things happen when I reply to a blanket invitation, asking them the reason for their interest:

1. They ignore me and don’t respond. Their loss – they have a limited supply of invitations and have just wasted one because they didn’t want to really get to know me.

2. They come back with this amazing story of having heard about me from somewhere, or seen me at a conference, or via a forum, or perhaps they’d just been learning about the VA industry and wanted to know more. How am I supposed to read all that in the invitation they had just sent? I always accept after receiving further info – I just like to know what the interest is so that the networking process can truly begin.

So, if you’re new to LinkedIn, or just been in the habit of sending out heaps of invitations but haven’t personalised them, I encourage you to take the time to explore the process further. Building relationships are always worth spending time on.

Oh, and one other suggestion. If you see a really well-worded invitation that comes your way, don’t copy and paste it and start using it for your own – I’ve seen that happen a lot too. Once makes it special, twice makes you wonder, three times makes you realise that some people just don’t have any originality of their own!

Tags: LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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The week of 24th March marked a number of milestones for me. 14 years in business, I reached the 1,000 mark in LinkedIn connections (thanks Mike) and had published my 300th post on my VA blog.

Those of you who read my VA blog will know I had a week of giveaways for new subscribers to the blog and it produced a whole lot of interest and fun.

What have I learnt in those 14 years? Lots – like don’t hold back on an idea but surge forward with it and action it if you believe in it. I did and ended up pioneering a new industry in my country even though I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time. Hindsight is such a great thing, isn’t it?

Networking is another valuable thing I’ve learnt. You never know who is going to be able to lead you to whom or where so it’s important to treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself. You never know when you might need those contacts. I’ve been able to introduce my daughters to some interesting people for their own life plans as a result of being in the right place at the right time – so leaving the office and actually going out and meeting people is a good idea.

Be prepared to learn new skills and don’t knock back opportunities. Much of what I do today for clients is as a result of saying ‘yes’ when a client asked me to explore something on their behalf. Otherwise I’d still be doing just typing and data entry and nothing else.

Finally, have fun. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing on a daily basis, then perhaps you need to reassess what’s happening in your life. If it’s for the short-term and you have a definite goal in mind, then that’s fine. But if it’s long-term and you have no goals, then something is adrift – time to find out what and why.

Tags: Author's Thoughts, LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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I get lots of people saying they don’t know how to use LinkedIn but know I’m a member so they ask to connect with me, or agree to join but don’t know how to proceed. I wrote the message below and sent it by email to many to help them on their way, but thought I should really share it here for all.

Granted, LinkedIn has changed how the home page looks now but the components are still the same, so the information below should help you move in the right direction and get some value out of your membership.

______________________________________

There are many components to LinkedIn and I’m not going to try and cover it all in one email but just want to give you an outline this time round.

When you log into LinkedIn you will see the above on your login page.

First of all Account & Settings is where you can set various items for your account – if you use more than one email address during your workday, then I suggest you list all your email addresses so that if someone sends you an invite via any of them, you will receive it into this account and not accidentally set up a second account – something I see a number of people doing and having challenges with.

There are 4 areas here you will probably use more than the others and they are:

1. Home (to view your updates and inbox and total number of connections),
2. My Profile (which you should get set up as soon as possible if you haven’t already),
3. My Contacts (where you will see an alphabetical list of all your first level contacts)
4. and the one that I’ve found most beneficial for networking – Answers.

Answers is worth checking out. You can read through Questions that people have placed and read the answers of others. Here you get to learn who has experience and knowledge in various areas and go and view their profiles. As you do so you’ll probably get more ideas for adding to your profile. If you know the answer to a question asked, don’t be shy – go ahead and give an answer. If your answer is listed as ‘good’ or ‘best’ you will start to see that in your Answers stats (My Q&A). Once you’ve gotten a ‘best’ answer you will then go on the Experts list – these are also worth checking out.

You are allowed to ask 10 questions a month and can ask questions about almost anything. But do have a look at the others first because sometimes the same questions are asked over and over again, mainly about how LinkedIn works. But that is only one category and there are many others relating to all sorts of things such as Technology, Staffing, Administration and so on.

Do be careful not to place something in Answers that comes across as blatant advertising. I did post something that was intended to be informative and to give others an opportunity in relation to a competition and it was flagged as an advertisement and closed. I wasn’t aware of this till I was checking my stats and wondered what had happened to that question. So I’m learning to be careful how I word things so that I’m not viewed as blatantly advertising something. Too many of these and you get your Q&A privileges suspended by Customer Service.

Be aware too, when you are sending invitations to people to connect with them, it is important you introduce yourself and explain why you want to connect – particularly with people who might not know you very well (but are on your database) or people you’ve seen at LinkedIn and want to get to know better. If they say they don’t know you and you get 5 of these, then your invitations are suspended for a period of time, so it is taken seriously.

Finally, if you want to get true networking value out of LinkedIn, then make sure you join some of the chat forums associated with members there. LinkedIn does not have an actual chat forum, nor the facility for sending emails to members so many members host forums via Yahoogroups and Google groups, amongst other mediums. You can check some of them out at my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/kathiethomas or simply shoot me an email and I’ll send you addresses to those I find most particularly beneficial.

Tags: LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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As many of you know I’m a member of LinkedIn.com, along with several other forums. Lately there seems to be a trend for people, particularly from LinkedIn, to start sending their entire connection list their newsletter. I do not believe this to be a good practice, apart from it not being in line with their user agreement.

Imagine you have a connection count in excess of 1,000 people and every single one of them added you to their newsletter list. What would happen to the number of emails you receive every day?

I know that people think it’s ‘only once a month’ but when you times that by 1,000, 2,000 or more each month, it gets beyond a joke.

When people agree to connect with you via a networking forum I believe they should still be asked, or given the opportunity to subscribe of their own accord.

I did email my connections list and let them know about various things I was doing at the beginning of this year but it was a once-off email – even then I got people asking to unsubscribe even though I explained they weren’t on any list in the email.

We all get inundated with more email than we ask for so be fair and kind to your networking connections and don’t add them to lists they didn’t ask to be on. Connecting via a networking forum was specifically for networking purposes. If you participate in discussions and give people the opportunity to get to know you, then over time they may well subscribe to your lists and even do business with you. Developing a good signature block for participation in these forums will go a long way towards attracting interested people to your lists.

I believe the building of relationships is an important part of networking and putting people on lists before they even know you is not a good practice and will put people off for the most part, rather than endear them to you.

newsletter list, LinkedIn, networking,

Tags: Email Etiquette, LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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