What’s funny about “social networking” is that it emphasizes the fact that few of us are gifted socializers, though we’re often ferocious networkers. LinkedIn, the “put on your good suit, good manners, and good networking skills” social network is interestingly, no exception. Sure, it lacks the lascivious photos and the tired pick-up lines - okay, maybe not the latter, which is exactly the point. If one doesn’t take a few minutes to personalize the virtual business card exchanging and colleague backslapping, the experience degrades quickly into the standard “popularity contest.” I decided to hop on the LinkedIn bandwagon this weekend and see if I could make something of the service after “lurking” for some time. I decided to send out some invites. Here’s the standard one that LinkedIn offers:

Since you’re someone I trust, I’m inviting you to join my network on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is helping me find connections to people at companies that can really help my career. It’s amazing how much further your network reaches each time you connect with someone new.

It’s free to sign up and join my network, and it only takes a minute.

- Matt

Now, of note, the company offers five other customized invites for various relationships and situations (former colleagues, looking for a job, etc.) but I have never seen one of these come my way and have only once seen a LinkedIn invite that was customized (kudos Charlie - unlike the rest of us, you are a truly gifted socializer! I encourage you to reprint your invite for the world to see). I’m surprised because the above is utterly generic, and worse, offers a very vague sense of the service’s use. It’s marketing speak. LinkedIn isn’t about trust; it’s about transparency and opportunity - the chance for an individual, service provider, etc. to be publicly vouched for and found, and to find others. It’s business personals.

So I decided to customize, keeping a few points in mind:

1) some of the folks I was inviting may never have heard of LinkedIn

2) why send an invite now? (context is always good)

3) keep it short and honest

I’m no salesman, but here’s my pitch:

I’ve deleted the standard invite here and substituted my fully candid version:

The invitation herein pertains to a web service called LinkedIn; I think of it as MySpace for business, which means one can connect with friends, colleagues, and frighteningly gregarious strangers in order to make use of network effects - job opportunities, self-aggrandizement, and service provider/employer/employee reviews.

It’s December which means it’s time to ponder 2007 and I decided it’s time to “liberate” the network, freeing it from the cold grasp of Outlook Contacts and exposing it the social networking hoopla. I hope you’ll join me, or if you’re already at the party, raise a toast!

Best,
Matt

Having received a few thoughtful notes in response, I’d add a sentence or two regarding “relevance.” One friend said (paraphrasing), “I’ve been on LinkedIn a while and never got anything out of it. Have you found it useful?” Another: “I signed up a couple years ago but it was dead then. Is it big now?” In answer to the former, I’m still experimenting, but I’ve already found a couple tech execs locally that I might not otherwise have bumped into, and to the latter, LinkedIn does have size - more than 8 million users as of November according to Wikipedia.

But I digress. The point is that one’s behavior within a social network like LinkedIn works professionally much like one’s behavior offline. “Spray and pray” business card handouts aren’t likely to yield the same results as a targeted, intelligent message (and hopefully, conversation). Next time you’re sending out an invite, customize. It’ll pay dividends.

If you’re interested in connecting via LinkedIn and helping me run my experiment, send me an email or head to my LinkedIn profile.