Personal Brand: 25 criteria to connect (or not) on Linkedin

Since its creation in December 2002 by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly and Jean-Luc Vaillant, it was launched in May 2003, and is a social media oriented to corporate use, business and employment.

Each user has a personal profile, and there are also profiles for companies. In this way, LinkedIn is an excellent tool for establishing a professional’s Personal Brand, and also the employer brand of companies.

The daily dynamic is nourished by publications, participation in affinity groups by topic – there are hundreds within each segment – and the interaction between users, who can join each other as contacts, or follow people who share interesting content.

It also has advanced job posting features, many of which receive applications directly from the platform, by simply sending the profile you have already structured, as a virtual resume.

An extremely useful aspect of LinkedIn is sharing interesting content from the professional world in which each person works. In this way, the network becomes a kind of great encyclopedia of visions, opinions and work sharing, adding value, inspiring, motivating and interacting in various ways: comments, reactions, live broadcasts, videos, downloadable material, uploading presentations and case and study documents, for example.

Another interesting feature is designed for product sellers, who have Sales Navigator, a specific system to contact potential customers or business prospects within the network.

LinkedIn has several membership options: the free one is very complete and functional; and there are three other paid categories, including one designed especially for recruiters.

If you have an active profile where you share content regularly (and that’s what I recommend), you may receive many requests to connect on a weekly basis. The initial tendency is usually to accept everyone, although there comes a time when you will need to apply some criteria, because, as LinkedIn suggests, it is not advisable to accept people you do not know in any way or who you feel do not add value to you, or who you have nothing in common with.

It is worth clarifying that this network is not the same as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or any other, because here it deals exclusively with links to professional profiles. The intention is not to make friends, give likes or publish personal life issues, but rather the focus is on work and networking.

In fact, in March 2021, the network privately sent me a survey to find out where I knew the last 20 people I had added as contacts: it asked me if we had been together in person, via the Internet, or if I didn’t know them at all.

When I received the distinction of “LinkedIn Top Voice Latin America” at the end of 2019 – we were 16 people among the 95 million profiles in the region that they analyzed that year – I received more than 7,000 invitations to connect in less than a week; which virtually makes it difficult to access all the requests. For this, the network has the “Follow” function, which you can activate, through which people will see your posts and be able to comment, even if they are not connected in the first degree (1-to-1).

With this in mind, I created this list of my 25 criteria that I take into account every time I receive an invitation to connect on the professional social network. I also asked 30 people in my network for some criteria, who added their input.

Here is the list. As you can see, most of them are based on common sense criteria, such as the fact that the person sending me a request has a complete profile, including a photo; or that we have something in common:

1. ✔ Have a complete and up-to-date profile
2. ✔ With professional photo
3. ✔ Active profile (minimum posts twice a week)
4. ✔ Own content in the feed and in the blog (articles)
5. ✔ Clear description of who you are and what you do
6. ✔ Own network of contacts
7. ✔ There are people and interests in common
8. ✔ Common groups
9. ✔ Express your own opinions and visions
10. ✔ Impeccable spelling and grammar
11. ✔ That teaches or contributes something that adds value
12. ✔ That has its own voice
13. ✔ Personal Brand developed or on the way
14. ✔ Show passion for your activity, and interest in mine
15. ✔ If you write to me, please know very well what I do
16. ✔ If I write to you, please respond with the same urgency that I demand.
17. ✔ If you need something, please be respectful and professional.
18. ✔ Take time to write well
19. ❌ It should not be a “serial contact aggregator”
20. ❌ If you copy content, acknowledge the source
21. ❌ Don’t just share other people’s stuff, or give “likes”
22. ❌ Do not send an immediate message to try to sell something
23. ❌ Avoid using LinkedIn like other networks: this one is different.
24. ❌ Do not copy/paste comments, or send pre-written InMail messages
25. ❌ Those who do not want to promote themselves by putting their links when commenting.

I hope this list of criteria based on my experience on LinkedIn is useful to you: I have been online for almost 15 years, interacting and generating content, and it is one of the most important professional tools for my Personal Brand.