I used to kind of ignore it, to be honest. It was a bit of a glorified Rolodex for me, and I only tapped it when I needed to track someone down and I didn’t seem to have them in any of my conventional contact streams.

But lately, I think LinkedIn has been doing a bang-up job of making themselves relevant and useful. From their well-curated Linked INfluencers content  (Hey LinkedIn – you need to call me about this one!), to their refreshed and improved contact functions, I’m becoming more and more of a fan. I think it’s got great potential for business and professional development alike.

Of course, the more relevant a platform becomes, the more people abuse it.

I’ve seen tons of posts lately lamenting people who are blast emailing their contacts on LinkedIn, spamming groups, pitching stuff ad nauseam…so I think we all know the mistakes people are making. Which begs the question:

How do you use LinkedIn to connect with people the right way? 

Here are my thoughts on it. Please add yours in the comments!

Use LinkedIn As A Hello

I’m pretty open with my connections on LinkedIn, because I like platforms like this as a tool for potential networks, or the connections I don’t yet have but could be helpful to me or someone else. (I personally don’t think it does me a ton of good to just connect with all the people I already know on every network, because that limits the multiple degrees of potential that are native to human networks. But I digress.)

Because I’m open about it, I get lots of notes from people within a day of our connection trying to sell me their stuff.

Instead of launching straight into the make-out session, let’s have coffee first.

Send me a note, say hi, tell me what you do and ask me about what I do. I’m really interested in hearing what you do and why, but not so much open to the sales pitch quite yet. We just met. Do like you’d do if we just met in person, and look for some common ground, make some small talk, that kind of thing. There’s plenty of time for the rest later. 

Endorse What You Know…and Without Expectation.

One feature I’m not crazy about in LinkedIn is the endorsements feature. I think it’s a little too empty, and easy to just click a bunch of tags for someone and move on.

I have to remove bunches every day because while I’m so grateful that someone thinks well of my skills, it’s really obvious when they don’t really have any idea what I do or what my strengths really are.

Aside from endorsements we have the full-fledged recommendation.

My personal philosophy is that I’ll only recommend people that I’ve personally worked with — whether on a project or as a colleague — and never with a quid pro quo in mind. If I don’t know your work, I’m not going to feel comfortable writing a recommendation.

Don’t put someone in the position of needing to say no. Ask for these sparingly, and never do the whole “if you recommend me, I’ll recommend you” thing. It’s pretty meaningless when it’s done that way, and a poorly written, generic recommendation is less impressive to a reader than none at all.

Messages Are Great. Use Them Wisely.

Once you’re connected to someone, you can send them a message. That’s awesome, and sort of like the introduction above, it’s a bit like business dating. I don’t really have your email address yet – that’s direct communication privilege – but we’re corresponding personally so it’s a step closer than superficial connection.

Don’t abuse this.

Keep your messages short. If it’s just a hello, say so. If you’re asking for something specific, answer a few key questions, and aim for the five-sentence rule (keep your message to five sentences or less).

Who are you, what are you asking for, how can we help each other, why does this matter to me (the recipient), and what’s your timeline for this request?

An example:

Hi James, we met briefly at the Marketo Summit in San Francisco, and I enjoyed our chat. I’d like to get some more information about your firm, and perhaps set up a time to talk further about partnering on a MasterClass event with your clients. I think we could combine your law expertise with our social business knowledge and do something fun but meaningful for your clients. Would you send me your capabilities deck this week, and a few times when we could chat next week? My direct email address is amber@sideraworks.com.

Keep in mind that not everyone gets email notifications for their InMail, and they may only check LinkedIn occasionally. Keep that in mind when doing follow up and expecting a response.

Ask For Introductions With Grace

One feature of LinkedIn that often gets abused is the Introductions. You’re connected to someone I’d like to know, so I ask LinkedIn to send you an Introduction request.

The cardinal rule here: graciousness. 

Recognize that you are asking someone to do one of the most important and potentially valuable things in business: use their trust, relationships, and established network to help expand yours. That’s a much bigger deal than most people realize. I value my relationships above everything else, and I don’t simply connect people without knowing, at the very least, that the person I’m introducing isn’t going to abuse that established trust or become that guy.

When you ask for an introduction, it’s best to tell your connection why you’re asking for it and what your intentions are as honestly as you can. Are you hoping to meet this person because you think they’d be a good prospect? Someone you simply want to meet? Are you intending to contact them with some kind of pitch or offer? Are you simply establishing the connection in hopes of getting to know that person better?

Your connection will appreciate understanding up front what you’re expecting from the introduction so they can ask questions in return of you (don’t forget to include your direct email address for that purpose) before following through.

Also, learn to interpret silence as a gentle no. One follow up on the introduction request is okay, but give your connection an out. Something like “If you’re not well-acquainted with them or not comfortable making an introduction at this time, I totally understand and this will be my only follow-up.”

Some people don’t know all their connections well and wouldn’t feel comfortable making an introduction on that basis. Sometimes they know the person you want to meet very well but don’t know you well enough to trust you with that relationship yet. Sometimes they know you well but not the other person, so they’d feel awkward saying “Hey, meet my friend” to someone they know only on a superficial basis.

Introductions on LinkedIn probably have the most potential, but they’re also the most delicate. Use your sharpest and most savvy judgment when asking for and making these intros.

What Are Your Best Practices?

If you consider yourself a savvy LinkedIn user, what great advice do you have for our readers here about how to make the most of it to develop your network with savvy and sensitivity?

If you’ve got things you hate about the way people use LinkedIn, by all means let us know…but provide some alternative guidance and potential solutions so we can all learn.

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

I have an issue with the distinction, really.

The mechanisms may be virtual, but with some exceptions, the people at the other end of the keyboards are not. They’re very real. We are still alive and breathing, sitting at our computers typing stuff like this or tweeting or talking on Skype. The context is different, the tools are technological, but the humans are every bit as real as they’ve ever been.

You can debate the depth of the relationships you forge via online media all you like. You can also debate the role that the nature of that connection has in that relationship, and whether it helps or hurts. But that doesn’t make the relationship any less real. It just makes it dependent on different context.

Anyway, I’m digressing a little so I can tell you this story.

I was traveling alone yesterday, dining by myself at the hotel bar. I chatted amiably here and there with the bartender, exchanged a few pleasantries with the other strangers at the bar who sat near me, glanced up at the baseball score once in a while. I had a magazine with me that I flipped through, and occasionally I hopped on my phone to exchange some text messages or tweet or write down a blog post idea or something for the business.

As he was leaving, one gentleman decided he’d give me a bit of advice.

“You’re going to wear out that phone,” he said with a smile, friendly enough, but slightly admonishing in a fatherly kind of way. “You should really keep your head and attention here in the real world!”

Aside from the annoying thing that is unsolicited advice (which is another post), it’s prompted me to take a stand on something. Your mileage will vary, of course, because I’m not you. You do what works for you. But here’s my take on all of this, and the concept of needing to “be present” wherever you are physically simply because you’re there.

Perhaps I actually wish I was elsewhere in that moment. Maybe the people who are very much real in my life — and most important to me in the moment — can’t be with me right now. Perhaps they’re having a struggle of their own, and I wish I could be with them. Perhaps I just miss them.

Perhaps where I am isn’t somewhere I want to be. Perhaps I’m alone, and feeling that way. Maybe I’m making my moment  less lonely with the company of the familiar instead of the unknown, with friends and conversations that I can connect to remotely, because that’s what *I* need.

Perhaps my “presence” is enhanced for me by adding other more distant friends to the mix to include them in my experience, sharing my surroundings, laughing about the crazy guy at the bar next to me, catching them up on my day. Maybe some of them wish they could be here with me, and I’m bridging the gap of distance by sharing with them a little of where I am right now.

Perhaps my anxiety is too much for me right now, and I don’t really feel like interacting with someone I don’t know just because they happen to be here.

Perhaps distance doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to you. I don’t think someone in my physical proximity has more intrinsic value than someone sitting on their couch or at their desk over an internet connection. How terrible would that be if our worth as a person were only dictated by our location and circumstance? If we were only relevant where we were in that moment?

Perhaps your world view isn’t mine. Like I said, digital for me isn’t “not real”. It’s just different context, with different degrees of connection. Our relationships have always been on a spectrum, from superficial to intimate. But is a Facebook message from my brother or a text from my dad any less grounded in reality simply because they aren’t physically present and because I’m using a new medium to connect to them? Does it matter if that’s a quick hello or an important family matter that needs attention?

What if I read a book at the coffee shop, doodled in my journal, knitted a scarf instead of using some kind of device? Sat in silence, or watched the baseball game above the bar with intensity? What would your perception of my level of presence be then? Is analog really so much more meaningful than something else?

What if I’m writing a groundbreaking novel on my iPad? Skype chatting with my daughter while I travel on business to hear about her newly lost tooth? Working on a paper that will get me funding for cancer research? Emailing my 90-year old grandmother because I know she’s lonely sometimes, and she loves to get email?

Who are you to determine what makes me present, and where, and how?

Unless my behavior is showing disrespect or rudeness to you directly, I’m not sure why it should matter to you what I’m doing. I’d never be tapping away at my phone if we were having dinner together, because that’s basic manners. But if I’m by myself, I’m the one that gets to decide what “being present” means to me.

It seems to be trendy somehow to dismiss the online world as one that’s devoid of substance, and to criticize those who have chosen to spend personal and professional time on the internet.

I find that horribly presumptuous, not to mention hypocritical in the silliest of ways. We want the technology when it suits our purposes, when it makes us look good, when it enables us or empowers us or befits us. But we’d also like to tell other people how they should be using it, what’s valuable and what’s not, what constitutes a substantive use of time online and what’s a waste.

It’s not up to you. And as far as you’re concerned, it’s not up to me either.

The internet itself is inert. It’s nothing more than a bunch of potential uses, sitting in wait for us to activate them.

It takes us to actually make meaning – or a lack thereof – out of what we find here. And the genie isn’t going back in the bottle. Technology is not ancillary to our lives anymore, it is integral to them. How you choose to embrace that is up to you, but I’ve decided how and where the web enhances my life

So please, if you see me working in a bar or at a restaurant and I’ve got my headphones in or I’m tweeting on my phone, by all means say hello. Comment on the weather. Ask me about the shirt I’m wearing. Strike up a conversation if you like and if you’re that sort of person.

But the way I use my phone or my computer or my iPad is my own, and when I’m the only one affected, doing so doesn’t make me less present, it just makes me present in a different way, on different terms, in a different context. It’s every bit as real to me.

The beauty of these tools is that they really are what we make of them, in our own way.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Skype call to make.

Actually, scratch that. I know exactly what’s in the water. Or at least part of it.

When it comes to roles that involve social media, community, or similar responsibilities, we made some mistakes in how we glorified them and set the expectations around their role (and dare I say, importance any more so than any other role in the company). It’s natural for that to happen when a new kind of skill set emerges on the scene; we did the same thing with web and e-commerce people in the 90s to a certain extent.

Social roles became the “rockstar” roles in companies, promising a kind of visibility and spotlight previously only reserved for publicists or prominent executives. We took marketers, communicators, and customer service people and put them visibly and actively center stage, making them a core part of the brands they were associated with.

For example, I had a very visible role as the head of social and community at Radian6 before they became part of Salesforce. It was my job to be out there, building the brand, supporting our customers, speaking at events, providing expertise at events and writing content.

But doing that kind of thing requires a keen balance.

Many companies even went out and hired a ‘name’ to lead their social efforts. And that approach was never awesome, but it’s really starting to show its weaknesses.

Me-First Isn’t Sustainable

Personally, I never forgot that while Radian6 was providing me with a great deal of opportunity to build a platform of professional expertise, my primary job was to help them build and grow an enterprise software brand and make sure that the brand was seen as the source of expertise and leadership in its field, not just me.

Social engagement made me more visible online perhaps, but that was an artifact of my work, not the focus of it.

Many people went into jobs like this thinking the opposite. That first and foremost, they needed to get seen. Get popular. Be influential. Whatever.

Now, many years into the maturity curve of social, I’m seeing a lot of people disappointed as these roles become less and less about being remarkable or special as an individual or a “personal brand” (cough), less about garnering some kind of independent fame within their industry or on the web,  and more about being the person inside a company that can ignite a movement and make lots of other people shine.

More than once lately I’ve heard a disillusioned social media manager or community strategist confide in me, “It’s not what I thought it would be. I anticipated that I’d have a lot more visibility and freedom and that I’d be doing a lot more speaking and publishing and be more trusted to establish and guide change in my organization.”

The problem is that social within organizations is doing exactly what we’ve always wanted it to do: it’s maturing.

Which means we don’t need rockstars, we need performers. People that can further business goals within a system and build and implement strategies that fit as part of an entire organization, not just their personal agendas.

Behind The Curtain Is Critical

I think we’re in the very earliest stages of work becoming more fluid than it’s ever been before. Right now it’s starting with more distributed workforces and flatter organizations, but I think there’s even more disruption coming (like entire workforces that are purpose-built to be ad hoc, not “on staff”, based on skill sets and expertise vs. ‘roles’ in an organization, but I digress).

We talked in The Now Revolution about social becoming a skill rather than a job. A set of capabilities that every person will have, to some extent, and apply differently within an organization depending on their needs and responsibilities.

It’s already happening.

We need people who can understand social’s impact on an organization, but not just so they can be the ones to use the platforms and engage with customers online.

We need them so that they can socialize that knowledge, form key leadership teams within of centers of excellence and distribute what they know deeper and contextually inside a company so that everyone gets smarter and more immersed in social as a catalyst for better work (not necessarily the solution for it).

The social ‘superstars’ need to be the best enablers we’ve ever seen. Which means they might need to be behind the scenes, not right out in front.

These are people who are polymaths and understand the intersections of social with different corners of the company. People who are skilled in diplomacy and teaching and creating consensus, bringing lots of different people to a table to develop a unified vision and a plan to get from here to there. People who can and will do the hard work, slog through the inevitable trenches, work through the arduous process of resetting organizational memory, and sticking with the sometimes slow process of change.

This kind of talk scares the crap out of the amateurs and those drawn to this profession for the potential “stardom”, because they’re looking at the big picture and wondering where they fit. They’re worried that if they’re not the one with the obvious expertise and the visibility, that they’ll be forgotten. Invisible. Irrelevant.

Or worse yet…unnoticed and uncelebrated.

Finding Relevance in The Next Wave

If you’re a professional working in social right now, you need to think bigger. And you need to think beyond yourself.

You’ll only get so far by protecting your sandbox, worrying about who might be overstepping your job description and whether you’re the only community manager on a team. That’s role- and job-based thinking, which has strict limitations. Because once you reach the boundaries of tasks and projects, you’ve got nowhere to go.

Instead, you need to shift your mindset as a social professional to purpose-based thinking.

To remember that your purpose in your organization today is to help the entire company bridge the gap from social media to social business. In fact, you might even look at it as working yourself out of a job.

That may very well mean setting aside your own visibility in favor of making sure your knowledge and expertise gets in the hands of everyone who needs it in your company. Truth be told, the former probably happens pretty organically with the latter. But like I said before, it’s the artifact, not the focus of what you’re there to do.

This change is happening, and companies are making this shift.

The era of the superstar is giving way to the era of the enabler. The person that can help ignite and sustain this kind of transformation from within and activate others. The person who really understands the difference between being indispensable and being irreplaceable (hint: you want to be the former).

It means your job can be more important than it’s ever been, if you can handle the fact that your fame won’t come on Twitter but on the balance sheet and strategic results you help realize for your company.

That’s a pretty massive undertaking, but it’s what will legitimize social in organizations for the long term, and the professionals who understand its place in business, as well as their own.

Are you up for that challenge?