Why should I connect with you on LinkedIn?

What is the reason for being connected to 3,459 people on LinkedIn if I do not know who they are and what they stand for? What if someone asks me to introduce them to someone I am connected with – but do not even know? To me, it just becomes too superficial.

That said, I very seldom get such requests to introduce someone to others and a recent online discussion made me reconsider my approach to LinkedIn. The discussion prompted questions like these: Should I view LinkedIn as more of a “see how many I am connected with” rather than a picture of my real network? Should I just connect with everyone and expand my reach even though I find my reach to be just fine with my current number of contacts and my group memberships?

The discussion reminded me that there are different approaches on networking and that there really are no clear right or wrong answers to this. Many people have second thoughts with regards to their networking approaches so I find this to be an important message.

We should also recognize that even experienced networkers have different approaches and second thoughts. When I get LinkedIn invitations from people I do not know, I politely refuse to connect with them. It is my policy to connect only with people whom I have met in real life or had enough virtual interaction with so that I get an idea of what the person stands for. I believe this creates better value for myself and the people in my network. Some people disagree in this approach, but it has always been respected. That is until recently.

Someone felt offended that I forwarded a proposal for an open innovation event as I had previously declined to connect personally on LinkedIn. I was even accused of having no credibility within open innovation as the person could not understand how I could work with open innovation as I did not accept all invitations to connect on LinkedIn.

I was challenged and puzzled. I reflected on this. In the end, I do not think we are so different in our approaches. We just have a different lever of when to connect. This became clear to me when I asked a question that I often ponder: What is the value others seek or expect when they send me an invitation to connect even though we do not know each other?

One answer is that some people connect with others regardless of their knowledge of each other because they do not want to block serendipity. I choose a different approach. I like being able to look at my connections and being able to connect/remember all of them to the interactions I have had with them. I get invitations to connect on a daily basis and I am simply afraid that if I connect with all these people, it will decrease the value of my true network. I choose to be more selective and targeted in my network-building approach.

With regards to open innovation and whether I have any credibility on this, I believe it is possible to separate your personal relationships with your views and work on open innovation. An example is the many interactions I have with great people through the various LinkedIn groups that I participate in, including the one I run at Leadership + Innovation by Stefan Lindegaard. I can share knowledge and insights with so many people even though we are not personally connected on LinkedIn.

We do not have to be connected personally to create value for each other. For me, the personal connection comes when we have gotten to know more about each other and have begun to develop the trust I think is needed to start building a relationship and share our connections. This is just my approach. Others disagree. That is just fine and one of the strange things with networking – there are no clear right or wrong approach on this.

The end of the story is that my threshold of when to connect with others might have been moved a bit – but I still stick to my initial approach to LinkedIn.

I am sure many others struggle on developing their approach to virtual networks. It would be great to hear your stories, input and suggestions on this.