As regular contributors to the blogosphere via social media channels such as LinkedIn, our writers receive a lot of comments, invitations and engagement from our shares. This kind of outreach is exactly what we strive for in the advertising arena, however, there are certain types of interactions that don’t exactly hit the target.
Occasionally, an interaction will be completely ignored by our writers or contributors as we aren’t sure of its point of view. The real issue with those kinds of social reaches is a lack of personalization. With that in mind here are some of our top tips that will make you even better than you already are at LinkedIn recruiting.
Canned Invitations
We’ll admit it! We’re all guilty of occasionally sending out the automatic invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Maybe you thought the potential contact remembers you, maybe you thought that the proposition you had to offer was obvious or maybe you liked something that someone elses’ connection had shared. There are many innocent reasons to send an invite. The fact is though, unless you have a long history with a LinkedIn user, sending the basic "I would like to connect" message isn’t usually effective and here are some of the reasons why:
- The user may not accept invitations from strangers
- The user may assume you want access to their connections, which they’ve taken time to build up organically
- The user may not remember you
Whatever your reason is for sending a LinkedIn connection request, make sure to inform the user. Plus, most people love to hear that you liked their recent blog post and wanted to talk further about it. Most people enjoy connecting with fellow industry professionals who are interested in a symbiotic relationship of information sharing. Most people love getting job offers that genuinely resonate with their skill sets. Make sure to make your intentions clear and the result will be more connections.
Your Profile
The fact is, empty profiles are a little bit scary. In the age of smart phones and mobile optimized apps there is really no reason why a person can’t upload a photo and write a bit about themselves. A blank profile tells your potential connection that you are one of the following:
- New to LinkedIn
- Unsure of how to use LinkedIn
- Connection collecting for your own benefit
- A stranger
- A spammer
It’s true, you may have just started using LinkedIn, but it’s important to establish yourself before connecting with others. Even if a person does know you, it’s better to have some visual confirmation before clicking accept. Uploading a few key details will definitely increase candidate response rates to connection requests.
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We understand that LinkedIn profile updates can seem daunting, which is why we created this worksheet just for you!
