How to Avoid Sending LinkedIn Template Invitations

Articles, Social Selling

I think that the first question that we need to ask is … “Do you think that invitations to connect on LinkedIn should be personalized?” Many people, including me, feel that this is an absolute necessity. If I want to connect with you on LinkedIn, and particularly if you may not know me well or even at all, I want to maximize every chance that you will accept my request.

Conversely, if I receive and invitation to connect from someone on LinkedIn who I do not know, and this invitation is an obvious LinkedIn template, you and your invitation are probably going into the trash bin. Often, this is not your fault but that of LinkedIn itself. Sorry![Tweet “If you send me a template connection request on LinkedIn, 90%+ chance of hitting the trash :(“]

However, if you have not even looked at my profile, and I get a template invitation from you (addressing it to Craig M. is a dead giveaway), I’m thinking that there is a 99% probability that LinkedIn suggested that you connect with me and you don’t much care if I accept anyway.

While LinkedIn would have you believe that you will always have the ability to personalize invitations to connect, I would dispute that …

  • When LinkedIn suggests that you connect with somebody, there is typically a reason for that. You have their email address or you might be connected to a bunch of other folks who are connected to this person. Therefore, LinkedIn generally, but not always, makes the decision that a personalized invitation is not necessary.
  • If you try to connect from their profile page, the chances that you will be able to personalize your message have gone up but … there is no guarantee.
  • Anything that involves sending out more than one invitation at a time is a guaranteed template.

My biggest frustration is … I can’t nail down their connection algorithm with any certainty.  If there were a way that I could be GUARANTEED that an invitation could always be personalized, I would be all over that. Well, it appears that there are at least five ways to improve your chances for success and probably none that you might expect. Of course, this assumes that you will take the time to personalize your invitations given the opportunity to do so.

  • Rapportive – Rapportive is a great free tool that was purchased by LinkedIn a couple of years ago. Recently, they made it more LinkedIn specific (removing some of its previous functionality) but, it rocks creating personalized invitations from your inbox with Gmail or Google Apps.

rapportive

  • LinkedIn for Outlook – While I no longer use Outlook, personalizing invitations was always a native capability of LinkedIn’s social connectors for both web-based and desktop-based Outlook.
  • Groups – Sending a connection request from a group’s member listing greatly increases the chances of you being given an opportunity to personalize a connection. While LinkedIn used to see group affiliations as a way to identify how you know someone, that option seems to have gone away. However, connecting with someone who you have engaged with in a group setting will highly increase chances of acceptance even if a template invitation slips out.

Group

LinkedIn Web Site – This one is a wee bit trickier …

  • Go to your target connection’s profile page
  • You may been to reload the page but you are looking for the star under the connect button where you can click on that in order to “Save contact”. I have also seen this as an option from the down arrow next to the “Connect” button.

save

  • “Saved Contacts” are very much like tags in your connections list. Go to that and filter by “saved”.
  • Find your contact, click the connect button and voila … personalize your message!

connect

What should you do if you wanted to personalize an invitation, were prepared to so and … boom! … that invitation was sent as a template before you could stop it? It helps if you have engaged in some manner prior to sending out any invitation. This is a good idea either way. While you can do so on any network, Twitter is particularly adept to this task as you can easily and quickly engage with literally anyone! If you have not engaged in this manner prior to sending that invitation, now would be a good time to do so!

Craig M. Jamieson

Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services
Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!
Send this to a friend