As much as I love Twitter and could go on talking about it each week, I’ll move on to something equally as interesting.
When I first started Social Media Marketing, I found that LinkedIn was an amazing social media channel. Packed with professionals willing to network and exchange information on discussion boards, it was easy to enjoy LinkedIn’s atmosphere.
After creating a few social networking accounts, I found the biggest leads were coming from LinkedIn, and the response rate was a lot faster than any other site. Yes, including Twitter. I had actually lost my faith in Twitter cause I really couldn’t believe that you could get followers out of thin air. With LinkedIn it felt like it was easier to approach people by joining groups and discussions, as well as post interesting articles for everyone to read.
I was interested and blown away recently to find out that not everyone on LinkedIn wanted to connect. For me this just doesn’t make much sense. If you are a part of a social media channel that encourages people to connect, but you don’t want to, then I am not sure what you are doing there in the first place. If you ask someone to connect, they have three options. To accept your invite, to archive you, or “I don’t know you”. The only problem with this is if they click on “I don’t know you”, you get into a lot of trouble on LinkedIn and warned. The problem is that if you keep asking people to connect and they are saying they don’t know you, you will frequently get into trouble and potentially kicked off. What’s the point of being part of a networking system if you don’t want to openly network?? I agree that spammers and the like should be ignored and reprimanded, but if you are apart of the same group and just want to share business information to expand your network and add value to each other, then I don’t see what the issue is. I feel differently about Facebook, because it is used for more personal use versus LinkedIn.
I have seen a few complaints from people on LinkedIn because of people clicking on the “I don’t know you” button, and some groups are even kicking people out for clicking it. Most groups have openly advertised that they are there solely for the purpose of connecting, so I agree with them on these drastic measures. If you “archive” someone it’s a nicer way of putting them to the side without tainting their profile on LinkedIn.
So be aware of what you are doing on social networking sites because it can damage or affect someone else’s social experience unnecessarily. If you aren’t sure of their intentions, ask them straight out and determine your next move accordingly. I’m all for keeping a happy playground.