Recognition is one of the hardest but most important pieces of the puzzle when looking to create your own name brand, . Andy Sernovitz, ex-CEO of the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association and author of his new book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, blogged about an open invitation for people to connect with him on social networks LinkedIn and Facebook.
This got me thinking. Many people have a LinkedIn and Facebook philosophy that they should know a person before accepting them as a contact. While I do understand their motives, I couldn’t help but question that idea, as I think it is dead wrong. Those people will argue that they want their network to be filled with quality connections who know them and can recommend them. But doesn’t that totally rule out the idea that by adding someone as a contact, you can make an active attempt at getting to know that person better? In the long run, wouldn’t you have more quality connections if you actively “got to know people” rather than shun someone away because you’d never met them?
Connect with me. If we are not connected on LinkedIn, add me as a connection. Make sure to get your name out there, and most importantly, let’s get to know each other.
Adam Salamon 
Adam – nice call on using LinkedIn to stretch beyond the people you know. IMHO, sometimes people tend to use it more as an address list than a networking tool. One addition, if you are contacting someone you do not know, you should add your reason for contacting and interest in connecting to your LinkedIn request. Don’t just use one of the standard LinkedIn request templates. Keep up the great blog!
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Interesting post Adam, and good insights. So far your blog has gotten me to thinking about how things could be different. Here in the Philippines, if you were to say Personal branding, people would look at you oddly and consider it just self-promotion (which btw was exactly what one of your posts tackled as a topic). But if explained properly (like you did(, I am sure personal branding will be a great tool and way of thinking. Keep up the great work.
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On the other hand if someone sends an invitation to connect then doesn’t the onus of getting to know each other fall on that person? I get requests all of the time from people who I don’t know from Adam. I tell them my policy of not connecting with people who I have never met or corresponded with and offer to grab a cup of coffee, but I have yet to be taken up on my offer. Folks who are out to increase their network without putting the work in are just using me and diminish the value of my personal network.
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I see what you’re saying, as even since I wrote this posting, I’ve had folks connect with me and then not take the time to respond to an initial email I’ve sent. I have, however, met a good deal of great people that I might not have met otherwise.
I’d rather meet a few people who change my life and let my network dilute a little rather than not meet them at all.
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This is one of those things where there isn’t any “right” answer — only variations of opinions.
It would be interesting to know if the variations on the opinions reflected how the person actually uses LinkedIn.
For example, I’m a “I need to know you person” when it comes to LinkedIn. Adam and I are LinkedIn, but it was because we have blogs, commented on each others blogs, and exchanged some e-mails.
But, I don’t use LinkedIn as my primary networking and personal branding tool. Having a network on LinkedIn is important — but not that much.
But if others use LinkedIn as their primary networking tool, including all the other things you can do with it (Jason Alba’s book: “I’m LinkedIn, now what?” comes to mind…), then I suspect that those people want to connect with many more people, even if the connection is more obscure.
So…are you a person who likes to know people they link to but don’t use LinkedIn as your primary networking tool? Or do you want lots of connections because you use LinkedIn as your primary networking tool?
Or is it something different?
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