So, you’ve joined Linkedin, set up a great profile and the next step is…

Today’s Tip:

Invite people to connect with you.

Linkedin very strongly suggests that you connect with people you know. There are ways to be an open networker and connect with strangers, but I will save that for a later date. So, let’s start with inviting the people you know to grow your network. Linkedin offers you the option to import email addresses from Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo and other email accounts you may have.

It is easy to import your contacts and send invitations to connect, but be careful. Do not pick select all and just send hundreds of emails. If your contacts are already on Linkedin, and they receive an invitation from you, they have three choices: they can accept, archive it or click the button that says “I don’t know”. This is important because you are only allowed 5 “I don’t knows” (IDKs) per account and you are really only allowed one account. Five IDKs will get your account suspended and you will have to work to undo that. I have read posts of people who have been IDK’d by people that they did know. Sometimes it happens accidently. Sometimes, people don’t realize how severe the punishment is for the person wishing to connect with them.

So, what you should do is either call or email the people you want to connect with and network with them outside of Linkedin first. That’s always a good idea, anyway. Give them a heads up that you would like to send them an invitation on Linked in. This way, you will keep your IDKs to an absolute minimum.

You can also invite people who are not on Linkedin to join and connect with you from the same page. This action won’t penalize your account, but people will have to join to connect with you. They may already be members, but use a different email address than the one you have for them.

Why would you want to grow your account? Let’s say you have 4 connections, if you look at your network statistics, you will see 4 first degree connections, maybe something like 450 second degree connections and 4 thousand third degree connections. That third degree amount is the number of people who can see your profile when searching for someone with your skills and talents. Whether you are searching for a new position or just open to the possibility, you want to be visible. So, the more people you connect with, the more hiring managers and recruiters will be able to see your profile. There are ways to search Linkedin profiles on Google, but the point is, the larger your network, the greater the possibility of someone reaching out to you with a new opportunity.

If anyone has any other tips to add on connecting on Linkedin, I would love to hear them.