One of the decisions I made early on in online networking was to become an “open networker” on LinkedIn. For those of you not familiar with the term becoming an open networker is where you join a group and are added to a list of people who are open to connecting up with people. Other networkers can use this list to make contact with you. Three years on after becoming an open networker I have thousands of connections. Now I kind of regret it.

I say “kind of” because there are advantages to being an open networker. One is that it expands your list of contacts by the bucket load. That means you are able to research thousands, if not millions of people in your broader network. This is great if you want to use LinkedIn to understand people, where they work and how they may help you.

The down side of being an open networker is that I am fair game. Now I receive hundreds of emails from people I don’t know. Many of them have nothing to do with my business. People have assumed that since I am an open networker that I want to hear about their bridge building business in California or a great deal on grapes in Penang.  I’m in Sydney and if you’re reading this, you know what I do. It sounds bizarre, because it is bizarre. I am simply being spammed. While I received a few interesting emails among all of these, I’m sure many more good contacts have been lost in the masses.

For me, one of the few things to come out  this deluge of emails, is a bit more insight on email impact and ethics. I try to understand how people communicate and how to improve my own communication. When I’ve read these emails I’ve realised how easy it is to all sound the same. If I open an email, it’s because it’s been a really clever or targeted email, and short and snappy, or the person sending it has “lucked on” a topic that has interested me.

With thousands of connections in my in box, I also find it hard to manage the masses. It’s a challenge to find people that I really care about and want to form deeper relationships with.  (If anyone reading this has that secret, please let me know. I’d really appreciate it.)

Another thing that I didn’t think about when I opened myself up to contacts is how other people may view this when they look at my profile. Many head-hunters I have spoken to say that they look at the richness of your connections and who’s in your network. With so many contacts I am sure I look either really impressive, or really indiscriminate.

My main take out of doing all of this is that I had hesitation about becoming an open networker. But I ignored my gut instinct.  At the time I didn’t have a good reason not to do it. I now know from working within online networking, Twitter and social media, that the community influences the way people use the forum. So with LinkedIn, many people have seen people hooking up and emailing each other, seeming indiscriminately and it becomes the “done thing.”  It snowballs.

What I do know is that I’m not generally a person that works a room and hands out my business card to 25 people, even at a professional networking event. I prefer to chat to two or three people and get to know them. Open networking seems to be a bit like that spray can kind of approach. I’m not saying that’s wrong. I just don’t think that’s my natural style.

My main take out of all of this, is my networking style worked for me one way offline, so I  should have approached it that way online. Perhaps that’s  a good rule of thumb for anyone, really.

How to invite someone to join you on LinkedIn

Most people I know who are not owners of businesses or in some sort of sales, consulting or marketing role, join LinkedIn reluctantly; or because they’ve been invited to connect. I remember about five years ago I started to receive invites and would think: “OK, one day, remind me why I need to again.” Then I joined, and had the world’s worst profile for about a year or so. I’d just hit accept if anyone invited me and leave it at that. Judging by the profiles I’ve seen lately, I’m thinking that makes me pretty similar to most people when they start on LinkedIn.

One of the things that stopped me from making more out of LinkedIn early on, was having to reach out to people, whom I had never met, and invite them to join me as a connection. The “I’d like to add you to my network on LinkedIn” invite, seemed a little cold particularly if I wanted to take the relationship one step further.

Tom Skotidas is Head of Marketing and Business Development at First Rate . He’s also a good connector.  He has to be. It’s part of what he does for a living. Tom is now starting to blog on using social media for B2B lead generation. He’s also running a course on B2B marketing using  social media at the Australian Direct Marketing Association.

Here are Tom’s top tips on connecting on LinkedIn.

I’ve just pinched these from his new website – but I’m sure he won’t mind.

First up Tom suggests finding human connection points. So: Tweets, blog articles or other online mentions – whatever you have in common. Say, for example:

• People you know in common (available on their LinkedIn profile)
• LinkedIn groups you share
• Their blog posts or published articles (i.e. the ones you have read and enjoyed so much, as to form an opinion)
• Schools you both attended

If you are not into building up your numbers just for numbers sake, finding the connection point, goes for hooking up on most social media forums. I’ll give you an example:

On Twitter I don’t tweet too much personal stuff. But I had a strange weekend a few months ago, and tweeted that I’d faced a sticky situation involving a dog, a forklift and a honey factory in Forbes. Two people commented on that when they followed me. I followed them back immediately.

As for your actual LinkedIn invite, Tom suggests: “Be relevant. Make sure to address your invitee by their first name, and to clearly reference your connection points. Throughout your invitation, be genuine and respectful. Tell them how you found them, and why you want to connect. And make sure to pump up your credentials as well, via a strong LinkedIn profile.”

Speaking of which, Tom, I may need to gift you a bullet point.