The simple answer to whether you should randomly connect with people on LinkedIn is: no. But this answer doesn’t tell you why or who you should be connecting with instead. Connecting with random people on LinkedIn isn’t just a waste of your time, it’s dangerous for your business. To truly leverage LinkedIn, you need to build strategic LinkedIn connections that align with your professional goals. It’s about quality, not quantity, especially when it comes to closing sales and reaching the right prospects.
LinkedIn isn’t like other social media platforms. The amount of followers or connections you have won’t be the thing that helps you close sales. Your prospects aren’t impressed by it and most of them won’t even see it if you’re filling your network with random connections.
Why shouldn’t you accept random LinkedIn connection requests?
Understanding why you need strategic LinkedIn connections starts with defining what a ‘random’ connection truly is.
Random connections are people who don’t further your purpose for being on LinkedIn. They aren’t the decision-makers you need to get in front of and they’re not a step toward these decision-makers.
There are plenty of reasons you will have connections in your network that have nothing to do with selling. You might have family, friends, co-workers, ex-coworkers – but these people won’t make up the majority of your network. Therefore they won’t have a drastic impact on if your profile is reaching the right people.
It’s all the other people you’re adding that will…
Firing out connection requests or accepting any that arrive in your notifications will expand your network, but it will expand it in all the wrong places. The more random or irrelevant connections you have like this, the further away your profile and content gets from your prospects’ feeds.
The danger this poses to your business is stunted growth. LinkedIn will always feel like a burden if you’re not growing your network strategically.
How to Build Strategic LinkedIn Connections?
The number one way to grow your network strategically on LinkedIn is with Sales Navigator. Its advanced features help you streamline your connecting process and generate leads from it.
With it, you can create highly targeted lists that will differentiate between active and inactive prospects – another key determinator to make sure your network isn’t filled with random or pointless connections.
Building strategic LinkedIn connections is made significantly easier with Sales Navigator. Sales Nav is an effective tool that makes building relationships with your prospects easier. As well as identifying the right people for your network, it will help you stay organised and focused on your reason for using LinkedIn: lead generation.
To dive deeper into the advanced features of Sales Navigator and truly master its lead generation capabilities, explore LinkedIn’s official guide on How to use Sales Navigator.
When you first log in, Sales Navigator might seem overwhelming but its dashboard and features are easier to navigate than you think. Learn everything you need to know about Sales Nav at one of our upcoming events. We’ll help you get out of the network danger zone and fill your connections with your ideal prospects.
