LinkedIn — Social Net­work­ing Site for Professionals

I’ve been on LinkedIn, the social net­work­ing web­site for pro­fes­sion­als and busi­ness folk; for about 3 years now, but it’s only recently in the last 12 months or so that I’ve begun to pay any atten­tion to it and have star­ted to put some real effort into it as a net­work­ing tool.

To be fair my efforts are pay­ing off and I find at its base level, the site is a great tool at help­ing me to cap­itil­ise upon my off-line busi­ness net­work­ing activ­it­ies. No doubt some of you LinkedIno­philes [sic] out there (if such a phrase exists) will chas­tise me for not mak­ing the best of what many people tell me is;

“one of the best online net­work­ing sites you can use whilst keep­ing your clothes on!”

Oo-er!

But hey, give me a chance; there’s only a lim­ited num­ber of hours in the day!

Cold Call­ing! Ugh Urrr!

One of the great aspects of LinkedIn is that it’s rel­at­ively easy to search for poten­tial cli­ents and asso­ci­ates by com­pany, genre, region, industry etc; get the full nine yards about their pro­fes­sional activ­it­ies and then use that inform­a­tion to make an informed decision about “request­ing a con­nec­tion” with them. A suc­cess­ful “con­nec­tion” then makes way for the begin­nings of an online net­work­ing rela­tion­ship which if either party is suit­ably motiv­ated enough about, may lead to some business.

All fine and dandy!

Unwanted cold-callers

Recently though I’ve been sub­ject to the advances of a few fel­low Linked­Iners whom I don’t know nor have never con­nec­ted with, “cold call­ing” me on the tele­phone (I can find no other phrase to describe it) in an attempt to “sell” me their services.

One guy left a mes­sage on my voice­mail which went some­thing like this;

“Hello Jai­mie [said with such a tone that would sug­gest we were lifelong friends], I’ve just sent you a con­nec­tion request on LinkedIn and wondered if I could pop-in and see you next Wed­nes­day after­noon to tell you about our ser­vices and show you how we may be able to help your com­pany. [The guy was a man­age­ment con­sult­ant]. The sort of ser­vices we offer include..[He then pro­ceeded to list a few of his ser­vices]. Give me a call back on [Tel num­ber] when you get a chance and we can meet up.”

Now some of you may be think­ing there’s noth­ing wrong with this? After all, it sounds like all he is doing is being a pro-active networker!

I Don’t Think So!

How­ever, to be hon­est this sort of approach makes me uncom­fort­able and leaves me a with a sour taste in my mouth.

Those of you that have worked or do work with me, know my feel­ings about cold callers. So this guy has com­mit­ted a Car­dinal Sin in mak­ing an attempt to “con­nect with me” by call­ing me up out of the blue and act­ively “push­ing him­self” on me without actu­ally know­ing any­thing about me or my business.

If he’d have been someone I’ve phys­ic­ally met, known in the past, or even spent some time net­work­ing with online; then I would have been more open minded and he would have at least have got a returned call. But “cold”? I don’t think so!

Secondly, online net­work­ing through sites line LinkedIn are not about this.

They’re not an oppor­tun­ity to har­vest names and people’s con­tact details in order to com­pile a cold call­ing list. If that’s your inten­tion, then at least have the nouse not to name drop the site in the vein idea that because we co-exist on the same social net­work­ing site, it gives us a com­mon bond of any stand­ing and helps open a door for you.

It’s not big and it’s not clever. Don’t do it!

Exper­i­enced this your­self, or per­haps you prac­tice this tech­nique? Let me know your thoughts in the com­ments below.

Other Posts Sim­ilar To This One

• Close Encoun­ters of the Artistic Kind
• Are You Neg­lect­ing Tra­di­tional Mar­ket­ing in Favour of Social Media?
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