Connect with people on LinkedIn

Building a large network takes time, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor. The wider your LinkedIn network, the easier it will be to make contact with other people – and the easier it will be for people to make contact with you.

Once you know who you want to connect with, find them in LinkedIn and make  connections.

1. In the search field, type a name.
2. If the person’s name appears in the list of contacts, click the Connect button in that person’s listing.
3. In the Invite (person’s name) to connect on Linked page, complete the required fields and invite the person.
   If the person’s name doesn’t appear in the list of contacts mentioned above, go to the Contacts menu and click Add Connections. Then, on the right side of the Add Connection screen, type the person’s email address and click Send Invitation.

You have just invited this person to join your network on LinkedIn.

Even if people you know don’t have LinkedIn profiles, you can invite them to LinkedIn. Simply type their email addresses into LinkedIn’s Add Connections tool and they’ll get a message from you. You never know – your invitation might be the incentive they need to join LinkedIn.

Speeding up the process of finding connections

You can make the process of finding contacts quicker by importing contact information from your online or offline address books:

• How can I import contacts from my web email accounts?
• How do I import contacts from my email address book?

According to the instructions on these pages, LinkedIn doesn’t automatically send invitations to everybody in your address book. You need to choose which contacts you want to connect with after you import all your contacts.

DON’T DO ANY OF THIS!! You’re better off flipping through your address book OFFLINE and inviting only people you want to connect with to your network.

Asking for introductions

If you don’t have somebody’s email address, you can still connect through an introduction via somebody you are both connected to in LinkedIn.

To ask for an introduction, follow these steps.

1. Click the person’s profile to go to that person’s profile page.
2. On the right side of the page, click the “Get introduced through a connection” link. An Introduction Request dialog appears.
3. Click the name of one of your connections.
4. Craft a brief subject line and message to your current contact asking you for a connection to the person you want to connect with.
5. Click the Send Request button.

Sending messages to your connections

As you connect to other LinkedIn members, see whom those people know. LinkedIn lets you review the public profiles of your connections’ connections. If it makes sense to do so, ask your connections for introductions to their connections. State your reason(s) in the connection requests you send.

If you connect to people who would critique your LinkedIn profile and you value their feedback, ask them to do so when they connect. This one habit will go a long way to helping you refine your profile.