A Linked In Tip
13 Oct 2009
You know that feeling you get when something’s just not right? I get that feeling every time I get an impersonal Linked In invite to connect. I regularly get invites from people I haven’t spoken to in quite some time. I’m amazed at how often those invites are the default “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” without any further personality.
Let me get this straight? You’ve not spoken to me in years and the best you can come up with is that?!? Well, then I’ll definitely accept your invitation.
Truth is, I accept all of the invites that come across like that, but I really notice people who take a few seconds to write something more personal.
We all want to stand out, especially on Linked In, where we connect professionally. Why not take this opportunity to start a more personal connection? To remind the person of something you shared and why you want to connect? Or simply show that you have an interest in the person enough to over-write the default invitation with something that reflects your personality?
Oct 13, 2009 @ 11:07:30
The problem is that most people are very poor communicators, they don’t know what to say or how to say it. And written communication exposes those problems the most. But in this particular case that’s LI’s fault (since it’s their functionality).
In general, I’m just not sure about LI. I am giving it an effort, I’ve got my career background filled out there, posting content from time-to-time, using groups, etc, but I’m not seeing anywhere near the social value from LI that I’m getting from FB and Twitter and some of the blogs I follow. I also find the LI site busy and confusing, which is the same way I feel about Classmates (which I really don’t use any more at all); I used to have a Gold subscription to Classmates but I canceled that about two years ago.
On LI I’ve got 100 connections right now. So what? I have virtually no interaction with those connections. And I don’t think it’s the people. I think the functionality is missing it. They might need to hire some really solid Human Resources and Sociology experts as product managers to give it the potential it has as a social networking site for professionals.
Oct 13, 2009 @ 12:05:05
I find linked in only useful for work, and I go there only when I remember… if I need to find someone in a particular company, Linked In allows me to search my network to see how I’m connected. For example, when I was naming my foundation, I wanted to see how hard it would be from a marketing perspective to have a ? in the company name. I found someone at yahoo! who could explain the issues to me and give me some advice.
Linked In is also useful for job hunting, or at least staying in touch with what’s going on. Headhunters use it a lot, and I wouldn’t want them on Facebook since I don’t know them. Linked In is purpose built for sharing your career history, and that helps too. I like to be found and contacted by recruiters in the right context, and Linked In provides that context.
I used to use Plaxo, and deleted my account after seeing that it didn’t add any value. I blogged about that decision here: http://davidbressler.com/2009/03/24/the-four-tools-required-for-an-online-personality/
So, I agree, that these sites need to have a real purpose, or people won’t/shouldn’t participate. I tend to work with a very distributed team, and Linked In gives me a way to stay in touch over time. I lost track of a lot of good TIBCO people who’s company I enjoyed because tools like this weren’t available back then.