How To Ruin Your Social Reputation on LinkedIn Before it Starts

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

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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?
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.