Why Do 90% Of People Do LinkedIn Requests With Generic Messages?

JH
John Honovich
Mar 18, 2016
IPVM

For example:

Equally as bad, it is generally from people I have never heard of.

I thought it was common sense / sales 101, etc., to write a 10 second personalized message. Yes/no?

I am not even sure the point of being connected on LinkedIn but evidently these people do, so you would think they could dedicate a few seconds to say something meaningful.

Help me.

(1)
Avatar
Brian Karas
Mar 18, 2016
IPVM

If you click the "Connect" link in the sidebar suggestions, it just sends an invite and doesn't give you a chance to customize the message.

I tend to avoid connection requests from people I don't know, or the ones that appear to be reaching out only so they can try to message me to buy some product or service immediately after connecting. I would say about 75% of the connection requests I accept get from people with "default" messages are ones where I know who they are (at least generally), and I don't really need them to elaborate on their connection request.

If I get a request from someone where there is no context and it's just a default message I tend to ignore it.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Mar 18, 2016

Or the person made the mistake of linking their contacts to LinkedIn and it try's to make everyone your friend.

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Hans Kahler
Mar 18, 2016
Eagle Eye Networks

I can't even see the message people send when I view the request on their mobile app, so I don't know what people ask in their connection request.

JH
John Honovich
Mar 18, 2016
IPVM

Hans, good point. I actually go to the 'see all' invitations view since every so often a request will actually have a meaningful message. And if I do not go the long route to check, people will think I ignored.

Alas the poor LinkedIN UI drives this.

SP
Sean Patton
Mar 18, 2016

I actually do that if I know the person well, because there's really no explanation needed

JH
John Honovich
Mar 18, 2016
IPVM

Sure, it's when you don't know the person well is when it gets confusing.

Avatar
Marty Major
Mar 18, 2016
Teledyne FLIR

When I receive unsolicited requests I usually just view this persons profile - if I can not determine an existing 'real world' connection - I almost never agree to the LI connection.

Example: recently I got a generic request to connect - and when I looked him up on LI it turns out he is some guy in Australia who happens to work for a distributor of my companies products in that region - so I connected.

Example 2: any requests from ANY manufacturers in China get ignored by default.

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