#4 Networking quality over quantity
Don’t approach LinkedIn or a professional network as a numbers game. LinkedIn should not a numbers game.
If you are connecting with people for the sake of looking more important or because you think it looks better to have more connections or to brag about all the important and senior people you know — then this is not the right series to follow!
My personal opinion is that to maintain integrity and trust, there must be a sincere curation to connecting and increasing contacts. Improving a LinkedIn profile should be done by highlighting your own expertise and connecting with your existing network, which is larger than you might realize!
Reduce false connections
People see right through false connections and more importantly, they will report false connections through the tool. That’s right, recall the “I don’t know this person” button that shows up when you decline someone’s connection? If clicked, that will impact the contact's credibility on LinkedIn.
It is important, and worthwhile, to add connections on LinkedIn, but only ones that you have developed genuine chemistry or relationship within your networks, virtually or in-person. It can be because you remember them from school, it can be an old colleague or a business contact we want to work with in the future, or even someone who you admire.
Conversely, you can add someone you only just met who you want to help by leveraging your own network, to connect them to a company for a potential job or to connect entrepreneurs who might be able to help each other.
Add unexpected connections
Whether the person you want to add to your network is the CEO of a major corporation or the waiter at our local restaurant is irrelevant, they are your network.
While it is clear that the CEO of a major corporation is a good contact to have, you never know what your waiter is working on personally. They could be the next Bill Gates or you might have the opportunity to help the next Richard Branson get an idea off the ground! Side gigs and startups have changed the scene of what can be deemed an important network contact and what is not.
Don’t judge people by their social status, get to know them, and if there is a mutual click then add them to your network.
Increase followers but be frugal with connections
You have the opportunity to switch the main button on your profile from “connect” to a “follow” button and thereby circumvent this connection curse!
Instructions
- Go to settings and privacy from your dropdown menu
- Click on the privacy tab
- Under “Followers” select “Choose who can follow you” and toggle the follow button to “on”
Now if you do that, you don’t need to worry about refusing connections, you can continue to gain followers and improve your profile to illustrate you are an expert or influencer. Crucially you can avoid connecting with insincere or non-genuine contacts, or worse still, purely sales contacts!
Quality over quantity applies to many areas of our life and networking is just one more to add to the list!
Tips and tools will be shared on this feature page. Feel free to ask questions or share your own thoughts and concerns as I share mine.
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