I’ve been seeing a disturbing trend on LinkedIn; a trend that is making me angry. People are starting their relationship with me by lying.
Let me backtrack. LinkedIn has a much more rigid code of conduct than other social networking sites. On Twitter you can start following anyone you want: celebrities, politicians, brands, random strangers. It doesn’t matter how or if you know them. You can start following them and they don’t have to approve you.
Facebook is slightly more formal. While you can invite anyone to become Facebook “friends” they have to approve you before you can be connected. Slightly more formal than Twitter but less than LinkedIn.
However, on LinkedIn they’ve put up barriers that make it harder for you to connect with people. In order to send an invitation to connect, you must already have some sort of relationship with that person. You need to work together, belong to the same group, have worked at the same company at some point in your history. If you don’t have any commonalities in your profiles, you have the option of choosing “other” at which point LinkedIn will ask you for the person’s e-mail address. The idea is to cut down on SPAM and ensure your LinkedIn network is of true value to everyone.
That being said, it doesn’t mean you can’t connect with people you don’t are ready know on LinkedIn, it’s just a little harder to do.
On LinkedIn I’m what’s known as an Open Networker. I am happy to receive appropriate invitations from people I don’t already know. I like meeting other business professionals because I never know who will be my next great customer, a great referrer or who I might be able to help.
The problem is people have found a loophole in LinkedIn’s barriers to connecting. When sending an invitation, you have the option of indicating the person is a friend. When you do this, you don’t need to enter an e-mail address or have commonalities in your profile.
This is where people are ticking me off. I have received a bevy of invitations from people who I do not know, who have never sent me an e-mail, commented on my blog, or even @replied me on Twitter. We have had absolutely no previous contact what-so-ever.
So why are these fake friends sending me invitations? They have learned that they can build their network by sending random invitations and getting around the LinkedIn barriers by indicating people are friends.
But to me, this completely goes against the true purpose of networking on LinkedIn. The whole point of networking on LinkedIn, or any networking for that matter, is to get to know people and to give them a chance to get to know you. And over time you hope they will get to know, like, and trust you enough to become customers, send referrals, and otherwise help you in your business.
I don’t know about you, I don’t see how starting off a networking relationship with a lie will help you help me get to know, like and trust you.
For the record, if you send me an invitation on LinkedIn and have indicated we are friends when we have never had any contact whatsoever, I will archive your invitation. In fact, if this trend continues, I may do something I have never done before. I am actively considering clicking the “I don’t know this person” button on such invitations.
There is nothing wrong with trying to connect with new people on social media. In fact, I think that’s the main purpose. However, please don’t start this relationship with me with a lie.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Does this practice make you as angry as it does me? How do you handle it? Am I over reacting? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Hello Andrea,
I completely agree with you. Although my network on LinkedIn would not be as wide as yours (since you are an open networker), I still receive odd requests from people whose names I’ve never heard of…. Forget having known or met them.
But I do try to be as polite as I can, as you never know who might really add value to being your connection.
What I generally do is, before accepting the request, I send them a message asking How do I know them? In case, they reply (most cases they don’t) I add them ONLY if I place them in my head.
I’ve been receiving requests mainly from people who have start ups and try to promote their websites, or products.
Andrea, I hear what you’re saying but disagree in part. Unfortunately, LinkedIn needs to improve its organization by meeting the needs of people like you who want more privacy, while enabling others (like me) who believe in sharing information and knowledge. I have connected with some amazing people through second degree connections and share with them regularly.
When I speak to friends and colleagues about LinkedIn the reaction is typically “Yeah, it’s all about maximizing the number of connections,” or “It’s about self-serving.” I agree. LinkedIn is not supposed to be like Facebook or Twitter where people try to increase the number of their contacts. I have several contacts who have blown way past 500 connections. There is NO way these people know all their connections. It’s about numbers, to be blunt.
I’ve spent 30 years in careers heavy on relationship-building, client service and forming networks. Now we’re getting great tools. We’re very much in the infancy of social media. Ten or 20 years from now we’ll shake our hears at how infantile we were back in 2010.
LinkedIn clearly needs to augment its site to cater more to people’s needs. Currently, you and I are both a tad frustrated–from polar ends.
Thanks for raising a timely topic.
I’m with you on this as it’s happened to me quite a few times.
I completely understand when someone wants to connect because we have a mutual connection or would like to be introduced to someone as that is what LinkedIn is intended for.
It’s when someone I don’t know requests to connect without giving a reason that I just ignore it.
[...] Andrea Stenberg over at The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur is feeling a little cranky about some people’s behavior on LinkedIn. As a result, she wrote Don’t lie to me on LinkedIn. [...]
Andrea, I’m still figuring out my criteria for connecting with people (though I’ve been on LI so long I can’t remember originally signing up). I’m not fussy about connecting with people I’ve met in person, but I tend to shy away from people whom I know nothing about at all.
As for the “friend” option on LI, I’m guilty of using it for anyone I want to connect with. Many people have more than one email address so how can you know if you have the right email or not?
I have a problem with people who want to connect simply because we belong to the same LI group. This is especially true of large groups with a broad audience, such as internet marketing. To me, that’s like connecting to someone because we both live in Illinois. Big deal.
I’d like a clue that they know something about me. For instance, that they agree with a comment I recently posted or even that they see I’ve posted several comments and they want to connect with people active in their industry.
When someone contacts me as a “friend” with no information beyond our belonging to the same LinkedIn group, I usually archive their request.
HI Andrea:
I’m starting to get requests for links from business people I’ve never met who are trying to sell me something. That’s a real turn off for me!
The reason I prefer LinkedIn to other networking sites is because it seems to be more serious than others. I don’t want it to turn into another SPAM situation!
Thanks for your post about this!
Laura Lee
Diana, I agree, when people send me invites I want to know they have some reason for connecting other than building a mass network. I’m pretty much an open networker – I’ll connect with anyone who wants to as long as the show me they’re willing to take some time to build a relationship.
And Laura Lee, there’s nothing worse than SPAM from social media sites. The reason many of us are gravitating to social media for our conversations is to avoid SPAM. Getting it on LinkedIn is just too much.
I truly believe social media sites like LinkedIn are about people taking the time to get to know, like and trust each other enough to be able to send referrals, offer assistance and maybe even become customers or suppliers of each other. I don’t think it takes very much time to look at my profile, visit my website and then write a short note about why you think we should connect.
I promise, I always do that when I send invitations. I wish everyone else would do the same.
Andrea
Hi Andrea,
I got connected to your blog through Fabulous after Forty. Thanks for the info. I am just looking into entrepreneurship and have only dipped my toe into Linked In(still working on my profile!) so it’s nice to get heads up about some of the issues. I think I would opt for the ‘how do I know you?’ and if they dont’ answer, I would for sure delete their name.
Hi Andrea,
I totally agree, however someone has gotten into my accounts everywhere and is impersonating me. I am assuming that I have people out there that think I am doing stuff when I am not. I am at this point replying to this message from a web listing with my name all over it. I did not have anything to do with it. I have been grosly misunderstood, and misrepresented everywhere. Im not saying that I have done anything that has happened previously, cause I doubt that because I have not had access to the internet for a few months now. I just thought that I would let you know that if you see my name anywhere in the future, please have that person authenticate thier identity by filling out a card or something. Thanks for the information. It has helped me to find the person responsible and stop some of the stuff that has happened to me.
Laura J Stenberg
Andrea,
You make a good point, however in part I disagree.
LinkedIn is a tool, specifically a connection tool used for many purposes, most of which but not all are social.
One of the uses of LinkedIn is as a employment tool for both job seekers, HR professionals and Recruiters.
In order for both sides of the process to work, they have to be able to connect jobs with seekers. For instance, a job seeker with only 90 contacts that they know and communicate with may only be able to be visible to a few dozen HR people resulting in very few opportunities. The more connections, the more opportunities.
I agree, no one wants to be inundated with requests from people they know or to be spammed. Despite this however it seems a bit selfish for people to think that the way they use LinkedIn is the only way it can or should be used. LinkedIn should come up with better ways or filters to screen out what we’re interested in and what we’re not.
Ken Garman