PTT: LinkedIn- To Accept or Not to Accept?

Professional Tip Tuesday
Today, I received an email question:  "Someone invited me to connect on LinkedIn that went to my college - but other than that I don't know them. Should I accept or decline?" 

LinkedIn is a really interesting social network - it's a great way to establish professional relationships. But since it's a new concept for interacting professionally, the actual rules of how to use it effectively are still up in the air.

So this week's Professional Tip Tuesday is all about when to accept invites and add people as connections - How to effectively connect with the right people on LinkedIn.

 The way I see it, there are two reasons to connect with someone you don't really know on LinkedIn. ...But if I do add someone 'out of the blue', I typically send a brief "HEY this is how we know each other!" message along with it. So here's the scoop:

1. You met in a professional setting.
• If you met through a networking event, interview situation, or something like that - you might connect on LinkedIn to reiterate that brief interaction. 
• "Hi there, it was great to meet you yesterday at Organization A's get together. -Anna"
2. You have a similar past/present involvement.

• If you have never met the person, but share an experience (i.e. an organization, program, or job) - you might use that as an 'in' to connect and ask them a common professional interest.
• "Hi there, I saw you were in my University of Iowa network (Go Hawks!) and you work at Company X now. I will be graduating in May and want to apply. Could you tell me a little more about the application process? Thank you! -Anna"

The best part is, LinkedIn is not like Facebook. As long as you have a reason to connect to someone, there really isn't much of a downside. You won't see too many 'over-sharing' posts with baby-mama-drama. 

LinkedIn is used as a platform to share interesting articles and cool things that they are doing with their careers. You never know when you might see something that interests you on your feed! 

So the bottom line is: LinkedIn is used to reach out and make valuable, professional connections. I received several invites to connect on LinkedIn that seemed random. But I saw that we had a few things in common and decided to accept. A couple of days later I got a message asking if I would be interested in interviewing for their company! 

How do you determine who to connect to on LinkedIn? Comment below!