I recently attended an event (you may have seen the plethora of posts about Lift Summit), where I met some really great people. I love meeting quality people at these events, like I did last week. People that want to bring the connection to a deeper level than talking a bit at the event and following the hashtag. People that want to maintain contact on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter’s easy. Just follow them and you can create conversations anytime. Even if they’re about something gross you saw in the airport. (That one’s for @JenEcclestone)

The problem for me comes when I want to connect with someone on LinkedIn. Until a few months ago, I didn’t realize that the note attached to the invitation to connect on LinkedIn doesn’t arrive in the other person’s LinkedIn inbox. Just in the notification they receive in their third-party email account. This has me thinking: Does anyone read those? Or do they just delete it and go to LinkedIn to accept the request?

That’s what I used to do—until my discovery.

Now I’ve heard several smart, professional social media people express how important it is to personalize the invitation for connection. (Example: Jay Dolan’s Stop Sending Generic LinkedIn Invitations!) Don’t send the standard one manifested by LinkedIn that sounds like a computer wrote it! “I want you to be in my network.” Something like that anyway.

I’ve been following that advice. I never send the standard note. I always personalize, although sometimes it’s really hard to think of what to say. Sometimes I say something like “LinkedIn thinks we should be friends. I agree!” Cheesy, but at least it’s personalized, right?

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to believe that no one reads them. I never get responses. Even to the ones where I’ve asked the person a question. So then the question becomes: Once I’m connected, do I ask them again? For me, the answer is yes. I re-ask. I resign myself to the fact that I spend time personalizing requests, and that for the most part no one reads them. I continue to do it for that one person that will actually read it, and appreciate the time I took to not be a robot.

So what I want to know is: do YOU read the invitations? Do you personalize the ones you send?

Photo by pursuethepassion