A major pet peeve of mine is lack of context…
Ok, I should probably explain that more. I am relatively active on social media, as I am sure many of my readers are (unless of course all my readers are my family… ah, who am I kidding, my family isn’t reading this… but I digress).
Different social mediums call for different level of interactions. And there is no right or wrong answer to this. In fact, over the years, my personal preferences in this have changed from a more exclusive Facebook to more or less removing most restrictions.
But one thing stands true in my eyes. And frankly I see far too many people doing this and it bugs me beyond belief.
But seriously, why is your LinkedIn Message so Generic?
Besides for not seeing any value in connecting with people you don’t know, if there is any chance beyond a shadow of a doubt that your invite will be accepted, don’t you think it might be somewhat valuable to take 30 seconds to type something personal, even if it is still basic, its better then the “I’d like to add you to my professional network” message, right?
And for the record, I know that I am not alone in this. Others have mentioned this frustration to me. A friend even sent me the below screen show where someone called him a “dick head” for not connecting
I pride myself on a few things in life, and one of them is this. Sometimes, its best to not make things so personal. But in this case, its foolish not making it personal. I have accepted people I don’t know before simply because they impressed me with a message.
Bottom line is this. I know others feel the same way. And not to say that I will every time, I can almost guarantee that if I don’t know you personally, and you don’t leave a personal message, 99.9% of the time, I will ignore the invite.
I suppose there is still that .01% chance…