Here’s How to Respond to LinkedIn Invitations from People You Don’t Know

November 28, 2017 / in LinkedIn / by Mic Johnson

Post written by Mic Johnson, talking about how to respond to LinkedIn invitations from people you don’t know

We’ve all received countless numbers of these generic LinkedIn connection requests:

“I’d like to join your LinkedIn network.”

It’s an annoying daily ritual that every LinkedIn user experiences. Even worse, the default invitation verbiage wastes time and discourages engagement, which is the exact opposite thing a social network is supposed to do.

A big reason why this happens is because LinkedIn hasn’t made it a requirement to personalize connection requests, but they have made a little progress.

When you’re on your computer or laptop, go to a person’s LinkedIn Profile Page and click the blue CONNECT button. From there, click the “Add a Note” button and type a personal message, letting the person know why you want to connect, etc.

When you’re on the LinkedIn app on your mobile device, click on the three little dots to the right of the Connect and InMail buttons and you’ll see an option to personalize the invite.

Now if you’re like most people, when you get a connection request with the default “invitation” message and you don’t know the person, you hit the IGNORE button.

But I’m here to tell you there’s a better way…

Take the following steps when you’re on your computer or laptop. Inexplicably, as of the writing of this post, this isn’t currently an option on the mobile app.

1. Click on My Network at the top of the page when you’re logged into LinkedIn.
2. Click on Manage all. A list of your outstanding invitations will appear.
3. Go to one of them and click “Message“.
4. Type a message asking the person why they’re interested in connecting with you. Here’s a message I created that has resulted in responses from people about 95% of the time.

   Hi X,

   Thank you for the connection request. As a general rule, I typically connect to people I know, trust, respect, can vouch for, etc.

   It’s nothing personal…just how I choose to grow and protect my network.

   I was curious as to what interested you in connecting with me. Were you interested in one of the services that Blue Gurus offers?

   My apologies if we’ve met previously and I’m not remembering.

   Thank you in advance,

   Mic

Here’s Why Responding to LinkedIn Invitations Matters

If you just ignore connection requests from people you don’t know and don’t take the time to engage with people, you’re potentially missing out on real business opportunities, career opportunities, new subscribers/audience for your blog, new LinkedIn followers, the chance to add quality relationships to your network, and who knows what else!

The good news? Now that I’ve shown you exactly what to do, you don’t have an excuse anymore to not engage people who are interested in connecting with you!

Does your business need help with LinkedIn? We’ve been helping companies for the last 9 years learn how to use LinkedIn more effectively. We’d love to help you. To learn more, give me a call at 913-645-6650 or email me at mic@bluegurus.com.