How I Made LinkedIn Worth the Effort

What Did I Actually Do?

This isn’t my first rodeo. After a few years of trial and error, I settled on the following message. It has several variations.

“(name), this is a personal message. We’ve been connected (X) years. It’s time to get to know you better. This is a note to get a conversation started. It’s like meeting someone at a party. My wife and I live in New Hope, PA. Population 2,500. We are a tourist town. You are in (town). What’s that like? We are big wine fans. How about you?”

Each message is individually composed. I send out 12 a day. I started with the A’s and worked through the Z’s. Since I have 2,000+ connections, adding new ones all the time, it took about eight months. Lets look at the math: 12 a day, 5 days a week is 60 messages in a week. Contacting 2,000+ connections needs 33 weeks or about eight months.

Why Did That Wording Work?

There’s lots of subtlety built into my message.

• First name. It’s personalized.
• This is a personal message. It says “I’m not selling anything.” Too many people connect and start selling. It’s a turnoff.
• We’ve been connected (X) years. It’s time to get to know you better. The mention of years show’s it’s not an automated message.
• This is a note to get a conversation started. It’s like meeting someone at a party. It’s a polite request. They can relate to “meeting someone at a party.”
• We live in New Hope, PA… Give information to get information. At a party, “Where do you live?” is an icebreaker question.
• You are in (town)… Another indications it’s personal, not boilerplate. If we’ve been there, I’ll reference something we admire.
• We are big wine fans. Sharing a personal interest. If they are too, it’s an interest in common.

There are variations. The pandemic yielded “Since we are all at home during the lockdown…” If it’s a new connection I might say: “Thanks for connecting. I have 2,000+ connections. Some I know better than others…”

Bringing Value to the Relationship

I built a few lists based on profession or type of firm. Once a month, I send an individual message with an article link. I think it stands a better chance of getting read than simply including it in the daily feed. (I post to the daily feed, too.) Hopefully the article has value to them.

I answer messages each morning. My aim is to get a dialog going and transition to talking business once everyone is comfortable.

Conclusion

That’s my contact strategy. I have others for building my network, adding connections and adding value within LinkedIn groups. For me, it’s an ideal way to use a powerful communication channel that’s basically free.

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