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Our mothers always told us, “Always try to make a good first impression … it may be your last.”
Sound advice, right?
So why do so many of us ignore mommy-dearest when connecting with people online?
Don’t fall victim to canned connection requests!
You know the score. You see someone you want to connect with, so you send them an invite. The social network writes a greeting for you … something like, “You’re a person I trust. Let’s connect!” You hit send and you’re on your way to social networking stardom.
Wrong. This is one of the biggest mistakes for new and seasoned social networkers. Here’s why:
6 REASONS WHY CANNED GREETINGS DON’T WORK FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING
- You Don’t Care About Me: You really couldn’t take the time to write something personal to me? Why do you want to connect then?
- You Don’t Care About Yourself: If you can’t think of something useful to say in a connection request, what does that say about your own work ethic. Too busy … or lazy … to write a few sentences?
- I Don’t Have Time To Read Your Profile: Who are you again? And why should I spend 10 minutes trying to figure out how we might have some type of connection?
- I’m Annoyed: Seriously, I get these kind of requests all the time from people I don’t really know. And you just piled another one on the fire.
- I Won’t Write You Back: How am I supposed to help you or remember who you are if we met before without some prompting? Writing you and asking “Have we met?” is just a little too awkward for many of us. So your request gets ignored.
- Your One Step Closer to Never Connecting With Me Again: If someone chooses “I don’t know this person,” when confronted with a LinkedIn connection request, the requester will never be able to ask for a connection again. Sound harsh? Maybe you should have considered writing a better greeting in the first place.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT POOR GREETINGS?
This isn’t rocket science. Make a good first impression.
Tell people why you’re connecting with them. Give them some personal details. Make others want to connect with you or at least give them a reason for why they should.
We’ve written up a quick guide for you to help: 6 STEPS TO NEVER GETTING TURNED DOWN AGAIN … FOR FRIEND REQUESTS. Sign up for our newsletter to get the tips.
Have you had experience with canned connection requests? Vent here in the comments.
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Comments
03.17.09
Very good advice Shawn. I just recently revamped, updated, and made some connections on LinkedIn. I had never really tapped into it as a resource and I'm still in the baby stages - but making a good first impression (even to people you know well already) is extremely important.
03.17.09
Hey Shawn - I've heard this advice before, actually I think it was Penelope Trunk who wrote a post about this a while back. I think it's important to distinguish the difference between TYPES of connections. Let's take 2 cases:
1. Connecting with a peer that you met at a bar and with whom you had a lengthy conversation with and exchanged business cards.
2. Reaching out to someone you're strategically trying to connect with and haven't had the opportunity to establish a solid relationship outside of social networking.
In case #1, I personally think it's just fine to send the generic LinkedIn invite - if it's send promptly. I get them all the time - I met the person, I know who they are, I accept. No biggie. It MIGHT be nice if they threw in a "Great to meet you at XYZ bar! Let's stay in touch."
In case #2, I agree, you should script a value-laden message giving them reason to accept your invitation. However, you neglected to mention everything else that should go hand in hand with such an action. For instance, I would never send a LinkedIn invite to someone unless I KNEW they would accept it. How would I know? I would have reached out to them via email first, or be connected through a mutual acquaintance.
So sure, in some circumstances I think a few well-crafted sentences can make a difference in Social Networking invitations, but it should only be icing on the cake. You should be laying the groundwork first by creating a genuine relationship with a person before "connecting" on LinkedIn. Can't figure out how to do it? Then you don't deserve to be their friend.
03.17.09
You make a really good point - one I hadn't really considered before. I admit to being guilty of sending a few of those "canned" requests....funny how I was slightly offended when I received them from others though. (maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me something?) I just recently updated my profile and I will never again send a form letter response. Shame on me, I should know better!!! Thanks for the post, you hit the mark with this one.
03.17.09
Thanks for the comments everyone. I'm glad this post helped out. The biggest point I was trying to make was just that your odds of getting a request accepted go up if you put the personal touch to it.
@Ryan I'll have to check out Ms. Trunk's post. I haven't seen it. I think in both cases you listed though that a personal greeting will help you out more than anything else, especially if you want to take your relationship with a just-met contact further.
Just my thoughts.
03.17.09
Link to Penelope's post: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/07/18/etiquette-for-linkedin/
Yeah, I do think that a personalized greeting will help in every case - but to varying degrees. In other words, I'm not convinced that omitting a personal greeting will RUIN your reputation (especially since there are really no conversation features on LinkedIn that would facilitate you gaining a "reputation" for anything). I think the post would make more sense if it were retitled: "6 REASONS WHY CANNED GREETINGS DON’T WORK FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING"
I like where your head's at with this post, but the subject matter (LinkedIn invites) seems insufficient to communicate the impact I feel you're trying to convey by users mismanaging relationships via social networks. I'd like to see another post that digs deeper into how we should effectively connect with new contacts using all forms of communication, including social media. I think that would truly be a helpful and interesting read.
Thanks for listening!
03.17.09
Good post, and I agree. Sometimes I leave the canned response though, if I've already been in touch with that person very recently. Like sent an email just before. Then it's not really necessary to write a personal greeting. But otherwise, it's definitely important to personalize.
03.17.09
For people you haven't talked to in a while or may have only met once briefly, a short note to jog their memory on who you are and how you know them is definitely in order.
However, I think it's a mistake to begin with to send connect requests to people that you don't know at all. If someone I don't know tries to connect with me, it doesn't matter what they write I'm already turned off. This is what InMails and Introductions are for. I would never connect with anyone I hadn't met or at least had a phone call with at least once.
03.18.09
@Ryan you're right about the headline, but wouldn't you agree people would be more likely to read the current headline? :)
@Brian good point. It's good to try to meet someone in person first. I've actually had a lot of luck connecting with people on Twitter first and then through other networks
03.26.09
I just got one of those canned invites as I was reading this- ugh! I always customize every bit of communication to anyone. Sticking with the default text, you might as well write "I'm lazy and don't really care about you".
04.15.09
Great advice! I must admit that I've been one of those people who send the default invitation text; however I have to agree with @Ryan in that if I already established contact with this person face-to-face and I send the invite promptly, I think it's perfectly fine to send the default text.
On the other hand, I never gave much thought to how the "canned" invitation appears to others (since I've only gotten them from people I actually know in person). I will definitely be making an effort to include at least a line or two to jog the person's memory of who I am and how we interacted. Can't hurt to remind them, right?
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