In recent weeks, I have been receiving an increasing amount of Linked-in connection requests and it has got me thinking. Now firstly I should point out I have a love hate relationship with Linked-in, some things I love about it and some things I hate. 
Also you don’t need to tell me about the benefits of connecting to people you have done business with or have met out a events. Linked-in is a brilliant platform for connecting to these people and sharing knowledge. The more connections you have on the platform the wider your search results go and in that effect it kind of makes sense. But what benefit do I get from connecting to random people I have never met or am likely to meet? What’s the point of that? Should I just connect to everyone on the internet but then those connections become pointless surely don’t they? Don’t they start to mean absolutely nothing.
I love connecting to people (you can connect to me here – just point out you read this for instance rather than the plain connect as a friend text) if we have some kind of connection, for instance we have met, commented on similar things or chatted on twitter all of these things are fine but connecting to someone that has never contacted me anywhere – this is the point where I begin to feel uneasy and think why?
I placed this question onto Twitter the other day to see what people thought and here are what they said. I don’t think there is a preferred etiquette – i think we are all still deciding.
JohnT2401 John Topping @chris_norton. Report as Spam. Normally people/organisations Sugging!
lucyhg lucyhg @chris_norton depends how I feel that day, sometimes just ignore others msg them questioning where and when we met!! It annoys me!
catcreativem Catherine Yaffe @chris_norton I tend to ignore them, or send a polite msg asking how / when we met
beautylike Shaun Harley @chris_norton You’re obviously very popular! But it’s usually easy to spot crass sales people.
Siobhanhymes Siobhan Hymes @chris_norton You’re right – pointless and cheeky of them to ask.
beautylike Shaun Harley @chris_norton Check credibility and connect. It’s business networking, not social, after all.
PillarPR Lynne Burwell @chris_norton I get loads of those and don’t mind if they include a reason why they want to connect. If not, ‘ignore’
Rosiecosy Rosie @chris_norton If you are using it for business, I can’t see an issue on why you can’t connect.
LouiseHulland Audrey Hepburnley @chris_norton I never do that on FB. BUT if the Linked In person is either in my industry or something I may need like finance then I do!
Siobhanhymes Siobhan Hymes @chris_norton Look at their profile and if I still don’t recognise them then ignore. They always seem to call themselves a “friend” as well!
paulruk paul rayment @chris_norton I get that mostly from recruitment people – who I then ignore.
Do you agree? Do you think a connection with someone you have never met is pointless? What do you do with them connect or ignore – let me know with a comment.
Thanks
Chris
Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.
