My LinkedIn Strategy Has Backfired!
How Not To Win Friends And Influence People
Yesterday and today I decided to step up my LinkedIn connections by sending out additional invitations to people who found their way to my GMail address book and also have a 
LinkedIn account. LinkedIn allows you to send out a mass email of invites to people who use GMail and are also LinkedIn members. A similar arrangement exists for AOL users.
Doing A 180
My first batch of emails was sent to people I definitely knew — about 25 of them, but today I decided to send emails out the remaining 180 others who were a match.
This latter move turned out to be a mistake as evidenced by the following messages:
- Who are you? Why have you sent me an invitation?
- Have we met before? I don’t recognize your name!
- Where have we met?
Mr. Sleaze Gets An Invite Too
One of the people who responded with a “do I know you?” was a client who had burned me in the past. Had I known that he was on the list I would have definitely not sent him an invite. I was tempted to reply with the following message, “Yes, you’re the one who burned me last year, you sleaze ball!” However, common sense has prevailed and I have decided to show some restraint.
What I am doing is offering a personal reply to everyone (accept Mr. Sleaze) along the lines of:
I apologize. I sent a mass mailing to everyone who is in my GMail address book and who has a LinkedIn account. Frankly, I’m not sure how we crossed paths but since I’m all over the internet it could be StumbleUpon, a blog, or some social media community.
Feel free to ignore my request or sign up and we’ll get to know each other.
Best Regards,
Matt Keegan
www.thearticlewriter.com
Inasmuch as I am blushing over my blundered social media strategy I have doubled my number of contacts and will likely see more people added over the coming day.
So if you are someone who received my message and you don’t know who I am — I apologize. Now go ahead and hit the “accept” button and add me to your list of contacts!
For everyone else, search for Matthew C. Keegan and my profile will turn up. Feel free to send an invitation out to me if so inclined:
View Matthew C. Keegan’s profile
Tags: LinkedIn, SEO, social media
Social Media | Matthew C. Keegan, 15 Nov 07
By Marloes, November 15, 2007 @ 10:33 am
I admire a man who’s honest and has a sense of humor. From now on you are on my list Matt..:)
By Matt, November 15, 2007 @ 10:39 am
Thanks, Marloes. I now remember how we met — through MyBlogLog. You have an English language blog that I discovered why surfing through and I recall leaving a comment while visiting there.
I’m thinking that I’ve crossed paths with everyone else at some point as there can’t possibly be a way for people to be added to my Gmail address book otherwise.
Perhaps some of them have spammed me!
By Scot Herrick, November 15, 2007 @ 11:54 am
I’m one of those curious sorts who received one of the GMail invites and I had the “who is this person?” question. Rather than write back, however, I put in the URL for the site and promptly read this nice apology. I’m not sure I needed or wanted an apology, but it was nice to see exactly what happened!
For taking the risk, being up-front about how it worked, and the nice writing I see here on the blog, I’d be very proud to have you on my LinkedIn list, Mr. Matt!
Scot
By Matt, November 15, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
Scot, thanks for responding so quickly and with kindness.
Although the campaign backfired in one respect, I have added 46 new contacts as of this writing.
A handful of apologies is being countered by a large number of new contacts.
By Mike Berry, November 15, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
I’ve not given in to the temptation to send invitations to everyone in my Address Book. I tend to distrust options that are that all-encompassing. Glad to know my instincts are correct. (I also tend to personalize each LinkedIn invitation I send, even if it’s just a “Hope you’re doing well…” closing.)
Sorry, Matthew, that you had to learn the hard way. It sounds like you reacted to your faux pas with grace and humor.
Here’s a great article by Sree Sreenivasan
about LinkedIn’s usefulness to journalists:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=102953
By Marloes, November 16, 2007 @ 5:06 am
Hi Matthew, I closed my Double Dutch log a short time ago. As much as I liked writing in English I just didn’t have enough time to keep it up.
Now we are not only linkedin, I have also added you to my feed.
By Matt, November 16, 2007 @ 7:52 am
Mike: Thank you for the link — I obviously need to acquaint myself with LinkedIn before contacting anyone else. Thanks for accepting my invitation, impersonal as it was.
Marloes: I knew that I came across an English blog that you penned! I can understand the need to cut back — I have a habit of adding, not subtracting.
By Emo, November 18, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Ok then, I think I should join LinkedIn. This is like the new facebook. Im required to join. Lolz.
By Matt, November 18, 2007 @ 6:06 pm
Emo, LinkedIn has been around for awhile but like Facebook worth joining. Look me up when you’re over there!