How to Expand Your Network on LinkedIn
Michelle Hutchinson
Image credit: Jay Cross, http://bit.ly/vMOBzI
Have you ever wanted to connect with someone on LinkedIn, even if you hadn’t met him or her, but weren’t sure what to write in your LinkedIn invitation?
After all, you don’t want to send the generic message, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” That’s so impersonal and doesn’t give the invitee any reason to accept your invitation, especially if you’re strangers.
Below are two LinkedIn invitations that I recently received and accepted because I felt the writers were being sincere and not just trying to inflate the size of their networks.
This one came from someone who shares mutual connections with me:
Hello Michelle. We have many mutual connections and are 2nd level connections on LinkedIn. I’d like to upgrade that status to 1st level, so please accept this invitation to join my LinkedIn network. I hope you are well.
This one came from someone who doesn’t share any LinkedIn connections with me:
Dear Michelle,
We have never met, but as a published author and speaker, I am reaching out to people of like minds. Can we connect here on LinkedIn?
Have a wonderful holiday!
Of course, before accepting these two invitations, I looked at each person’s profile to see if what they wrote in their messages was true.
Then I responded by thanking them for reaching out to me and indicated that I had accepted.
If people with whom you’d like to connect on LinkedIn haven’t been accepting your invitations, try a personal approach like those used in the two strategies above.
If you’d like to connect with me on LinkedIn, go to http://www.linkedin.com/in/wordhelper and sign into your account, but make sure you include a message indicating why we should connect.
Related posts:
How to Deal with LinkedIn Invitations from Strangers
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