Thanks Sunil. Given your HR Specialization, I’m willing to wager that you get a lot of these types of invites on LinkedIn. 🙂

Quite often, Reba, it is the simpler activities that add most value to our connections, like an article that you read about a topic in your industry and send a link or the article itself to the contact. I do it all the time and always receive an acknowledgement and they send me articles too! Delighted I’ve been able to provide the right example to help.

Thank you Marquita. My experience has been similar to yours. I’m glad you liked the referral asking advice – its a difficult area to handle gracefully when we are helpful by nature but don’t know how to respond.

I’ve seen that happen a lot with my LinkedIn connections, Suzie. 🙂 There have been times when I have invited an old colleague or sent them a message and then see a lot of their activity which includes profile updates, new connections and notifications of what they have liked. Like a jumpstart to be more active. The best way of managing LinkedIn even if you are not very active there is to schedule a profile update every 6 months to make sure your profile is representing your work and business as it stands. We do develop ourselves as our business develops.

Absolutely, Joyce. Over 80% of people Google a person before doing business with them and for most professionals, if they have a robust LinkedIn Profile, their name would show their LinkedIn profile at the top of the search page. From there the researcher would definitely land on LI and view the profile and if it is a possible match for what they are looking for, even connect or send a message. But it doesn’t stop there. Building relationships enhances the Know, Like and Trust factor that can lead to potential business or even referrals. Thank you for sharing your insights.