Skip to main content

5 Tips When Networking On LinkedIn

If you are familiar with Facebook, you have seen people post that they just got out of "Facebook jail". Apparently they violated the Terms of Service and someone complained enough that Facebook decided to lock them out of the platform for a number of days.

LinkedIn also has Terms of Service, and the most common rule that is broken is trying to connect with people who you don't know. To me, this sounds stupid, because why would you want, or need, to connect with people you already know? It defeats the purpose of networking.

With this said, I'm not ashamed to say that I've served time in LinkedIn jail. I wish I could give a story about standing up to the biggest guy in the virtual prison yard or someone slipped me a file in a cake, but I can't. I just couldn't get on. They locked me out.




I've covered some of this previously and in my book, but I thought I may shed some new light on this subject. With this in mind, here are a few tips on how to use LinkedIn effectively.

  1. Don't send out random connection requests to people you don't know or have any mutual connections with. People are already suspicious of scams and phishers on social media and LinkedIn provides a way to decline requests (which I do often if someone is in the Philippines or Bangladesh), as well as following up with an "I don't know this person" button. If you get enough people saying no to your connection requests you'll get a warning. And if you insists on trying this method, you'll get sentenced to a week or two of hard time. 
  2. Don't get on LinkedIn if you don't want to network. I know that sounds mean, but most of the people on LinkedIn are professionals who want to expand their circles. Several years ago I had a connection requests from a local artisan. I dropped him a notes stating that since we were just a few miles apart we should meet over a cup of coffee, my treat of course. His response was, "I don't want to meet anyone." A few hours later I posted to all of my connections that it didn't make sense to sign up for LinkedIn if they weren't willing to network. He took offense and commented "You're talking about me, aren't you?" Hey dude, shoe fits.
  3. Groups can be great if you use them correctly. As an insurance agent, I am in several insurance groups on LinkedIn, some with tens of thousands of people I don't know. I'm also in several other groups which are comprised of my fellow alumni, locals and various other ancillary interests. For instance, I also do some public speaking, so I'm in groups of speakers as well as people who may be looking for speakers. Take advantage of these groups by "liking"and commenting on various posts. Your next prospect may be in there waiting for you.
  4. Don't treat LinkedIn like you would Facebook or Twitter. LinkedIn is for business professionals who are looking to prospect, network and maybe even hire someone. No one cares about your political views or your drunken photos from your vacation.  And on a related note...
  5. Present yourself as a professional. If you can, have a professionally made head shot. A pic of you at a wedding with your cocktail cropped out looks bad. And just as bad is no picture of you at all. People want to meet you but not if you come across as a knuckle head. There are some exceptions to this. If you are a tree trimmer, no one is expecting you to wear a coat and tie in your photo, but maybe a picture of you (clean) next to your truck with lettering will do. 
So there you have a few tips on how to use LinkedIn a bit more effectively. I've managed to get some awesome business contacts through the platform and I hope it works for you too. As always, if you have any other suggestions, please put them in the comment section.


Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When It Rains, It's Time To Call

If you're anything like me, you hate to cold call. Especially when the weather is nasty. But when I first started out in the business, I had to "drop in" on people because I didn't have any contacts or referral sources.  Working in a B2B setting was difficult to get the decision maker when he or she was out playing golf or "taking the rest of the day off" when it was nice and sunny. I did realize, however, that the odds of contacting business owner and manager increased greatly when the weather was bad. I also realized that the worse the weather was, my competitors wouldn't be out in it either. That left me, alone in the rain or sleet or hail, to call on prospects that I wanted to convert to customers. And it worked more often than not. If you're having a hard time trying to pin your B2B prospect down, try making an in-person visit or a phone call when the weather is bad. It may work for you.    Chris Castane s is a humorous speaker who helps sales ...

Introducing the "You're Going To Be Great At This!" Podcast

I was pretty surprised when I saw that my last blog post was several months ago. Time really does fly when you're having fun, or in my case, just having a busy workload. In the last few months I've been on the road for an approximate total of 9 weeks. Needless to say I get less than motivated to work in a hotel room after selling insurance for 8 hours, so blogging isn't on my "to do" list. While driving in my car during these trips I try to make my time productive my listening to podcasts on business and marketing. I'm not sure if someone was trying to tell me something but over the course of a week or so, I heard 4 episodes on how starting a podcast can help boost your business. After mulling this over and considering my options, I decided to take the plunge and start one myself. I've had a YouTube channel for a while which is fine, but I wanted to do something a little different. So I decided to start the "You're Going To Be Great At This!"...

The Telemarketer's Leads - A Dumb Story

For a brief few months I worked as a telemarketer for a small firm owned by a young married couple. The husband was a bit of a hot head and kind of a jerk on occasion, but his wife was nice and had to put up with the guy.  One of their clients was a mobile home company that wanted people to come to the lot and see how awesome their singlewides and doublewides were. As telemarketers we offered incentives like a cooler and camera (back when they weren’t part of your phone) and other assorted giveaways. We got a small commission if we could book the client. My coworkers and I would call from a list of leads that our employers had purchased from someone. These leads were supposedly “qualified” ahead of time, meaning that they had been vetted to meet the needs of the client, the mobile home company. Unfortunately, most of the leads were useless. The people we spoke to didn’t live in the right geographical areas or their incomes were too low.  “Why aren’t you guys closing anyone?” t...