How To Effectively Make Connections On LinkedIn
Increase Your Chance Of Being Accepted and Getting Closer to Your Remote Work Dream
Most people don’t mind helping you on your job search. Many people would be willing to help you. And some people are looking for ways to help you.
But almost no one will help you if your approach is off.
So today, let’s talk about how to effectively connect on LinkedIn. This is often part of the process of landing a remote job, so it’s critical to get it right.
An Uncomfortable Truth
Almost everyone you connect with will want something from you. They may not know it, but people are, by in large, transactional at the beginning of a relationship.
This is why it’s absolutely critical to approach every new relationship on social media with a giving mindset. It addresses a person’s desire to get something from you, and helps them feel comfortable giving you their precious time/spot in their network.
Accept this, and you will get much further in growing your LinkedIn connections.
What You Can Give
There are many ways you can give to a person in order to connect with them.
Here’s a list of things, in no particular order, that you can give when connecting:
A compliment. Many people appreciate a genuine compliment, and will be glad to connect. When giving a compliment, make sure it’s specific and clearly related to what they posted about or is on their profile.
Feedback. This doesn’t work on everyone, but if you have constructive feedback about a person’s content or their profile, then you may well get your connection request accepted. A key way to use feedback to connect is to contextualize it in the relationship you want to have with the person.
So if you want a peer in your industry, you might give them feedback about something industry-related they wrote about. Maybe you disagreed with them and want to stay connected so you can discuss and develop your thinking.
Remember: Decide on what kind of relationship you want to have and contextualize the connection in that relationship.Help. Sometimes a person will, explicitly or implicitly, signal they want to get help. This could be help with a project they are working on that they mentioned, or help getting information about something. This is an easy one: just offer the help immediately in your connect request.
Followers. Don’t fool yourself: most people don’t want to accept someone just because they follow them. But if you combine following someone with the next step, you can likely get them to connect.
Thoughtful comments. This is critical, because engagement alone isn’t nearly as interesting as it used to be. Even a positive comment, while it may get attention, will not necessarily get your connection request accepted. But if you can leave a helpful comment that shows you read their post, thought about it, and took the time to leave a useful comment for them or others, they will be more likely to accept your request.
There may be other strategies, feel free to leave a comment for me and for others. But these are great and key strategies.
What Not To Do
So you’ve given something. Now they will likely accept your request. But a few things may stop them from doing so, and it’s critical you avoid them, or your request will likely be ignored.
Don’t ask for more than a connection. If you do, your ratio of give to take will be off balance in their minds, and they may not accept, or if they do, it will be grudgingly.
Don’t message them separately asking for something more. Most smart people on LinkedIn will figure this out quickly ignore you, or choose to just engage in a message. It’s okay to use InMail, but don’t also try to connect. We’ll talk about some simple dos and don’ts of InMail another day soon.
Don’t be rude. This should be a given: LinkedIn is a professional space. But unfortunately it is an issue more often than it ought to be.
And that’s it. The list of things not to do is very simple and straightforward.
Your Action Item
Go connect with 10 people in the industry or companies you’d like to work with. Make your connection request by giving something from the list above.
If you want templates for connect requests, like this post. If it hits 20 likes, I will add templates below this message.
I hope you have a great start to your weekend :).