Linkedin Invitations

[restoman]

I've been a member on Linkedin for some time - primarily because a customer invited me to join and it would be rude not to . . .
Lately I've had a couple of invitations from other members to connect (?) with them. These are from people I don't know and, having looked at their profiles, would appear to have no need for the services my business offers and no connection to any of my interests.

Am I missing something?

[Ghost91]

This happens on all forms of social media really - someone may add you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter and you have no idea who it is...

I tend to accept the invite to connect from people in management at companies no matter how random just incase on the off chance they might offer me some sort of job at some point, you never know I suppose. There seems to be quite a few office types particularly recruitment people who just seem to spend a lot of time on linked in for the sake of it really, personally I haven't found it a particularly useful tool for work at all.

[technodup]

restoman said:

Lately I've had a couple of invitations from other members to connect (?) with them. These are from people I don't know and, having looked at their profiles, would appear to have no need for the services my business offers and no connection to any of my interests.

Reply by thanking them and asking what prompted them to connect. They'll either ignore so you don't connect or they'll mention they were thinking about X, Y or Z and your profile caught their eye. It can open the door for a conversation about your services and potentially a sale.

Most people who use LinkedIn don't have a clue what they want from it other than 'more business' or 'new job' and so don't have a clue how to use it. There are others out there who make good money from it because like any other marketing tool used correctly it can yield results.

[andy-xr]

I wouldnt put too much thought into it to be honest, you've either come up in someone else's 'people you may know' or they've seen you on someone else's profile or done a search.

You can either accept them or decline them, nothing really else to think about. Some people spend their days on LinkedIn, some are looking to build their network for a large number of connections, some people really want to answer the question of why 442+5444 = 16 and call themselves a genius

[Boosted LS1]

I had some invites as well but can't understand the site or the point of it. Is it simply just a group of people exchanging their business credentials. Are there gains to be had from being on there?

[Sheepshanks]

Boosted LS1 said:

I had some invites as well but can't understand the site or the point of it. Is it simply just a group of people exchanging their business credentials. Are there gains to be had from being on there?

If you're in a sales / business development related type of role then it can be handy for finding contacts at companies that you'd like to do business with.

Also, in a market segment where the employees are fairly tansient it's interesting to see who is changing jobs and where they're going to.

I get a couple of completely random requests per week and just ignore them - they're often from apparently good looking birds in the Far East, but they can be from people vaguely connected somehow (perhaps in the same industry as me).

Most weird suggested contact was the consultant who was treating my wife at our local hospital - Goodness knows how LinkedIn made that association.