How to Communicate with New LinkedIn Contacts
with Viveka von Rosen
This video covers the ways of engaging with your connections on LinkedIn through commenting, sharing and liking updates of their activities, their articles and their posts or by sending them private messages.
Important considerations:Be respectful but not necessarily subservient. It is about the culture of the individuals and the culture of company that you're engaging with.
Company cultures vary, so consider whether your communication -- through updates or through messaging – should be casual and relaxed or structured and formal.
1. Start engaging them with the Activity they post on their Profile
- Go to their profile
- Scroll down and select “See all articles” section. You can see the articles that they've written.
- Also click on “See all activity” section which is everything that they've done on LinkedIn.
- Scroll through the activities of those individuals that you interested in engaging with. 'Like', 'Comment' or 'Share' their contents. They'll be notified that activity.
- You might start to build some top-of-mind awareness with them. So when you do reach out and ask a question or ask for a little bit of time on the phone, they are a lot more likely to give you a few minutes.
2. If they're not active on LinkedIn, send a private message
- From their profile, click on the 'Message' tab and send a message.
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If you're messaging several of the individuals go to the 'Messaging' tab at the top of your profile page, but send a custom message to each individual one at a time, not a group message.
- Send a message by clicking on the little pen icon to the right of messaging.
- Send message to one person at a time. If you start typing in the names of everybody in 'New Message' tab they're all going to see each other. They're all going to see that you sent them all the exact same message.
What's a good message for someone that you just connected with on LinkedIn?
- If they accepted your invitation shortly before, say: “Thanks so much for accepting my invitation to connect. I really appreciate it.” (As a reminder, I'm the recent Graduate who reached out to you-when). “I have a few questions about (Company or Industry). Could I send my questions to you in an email or here on LinkedIn? Or if you have 10 minutes, can I get on a call with you?”
- If you think your new contact is busy, say: “Hi (Name), I totally understand how busy you must be. I might reach out in a few months-but promise to leave you alone for time you being. Thanks.”
- Follow up your interview with a personalized thank you note like this: “Thank you so much for your time yesterday. These are the actions I have taken_______. Your guidance means so much!”
Remember: Always add your name, phone number, email address or a link. That's the one you use for scheduling (e.g. Calendly.com) at the end of your messages.
Set the expectation of frequency of future contact (e.g. Ask a question once a month or twice a year). They might be much more willing to engage with you.
Remember: Corporate culture is important when communicating with your new connections
Viveka is known internationally as the “LinkedIn Networking Expert.” Author of “LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour A Day” for John Wiley & Sons, she is also a regular source on LinkedIn for prestigious news outlets such as Forbes, Money Magazine, Mashable.com, Ragan.com, SocialMediaExaminer.com, CNN and The Miami Herald.
Viveka is the host of the biggest LinkedIn chat on Twitter: #LinkedInChat (Ranked by Mashable as one of the top 10 business blogs) and co-moderator of LinkedStrategies, the largest LinkedIn strategy group on LinkedIn. She is distinguished among the elite in social media:
- Forbes 20 Most Influential Women in Social Media (2011, 2012, 2013)
- Forbes 50 Most Influential People in Social Media (2011, 2012, 2013)
- TopRank’s 25 Women Who Rock Social Media in (2011, 2012, 2013)