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The biggest feature that is present in all social networking sites is the ability to add any person you like which while widen your network allowing you to communicate with more people as it opens up more 2^nd and 3^rd degree contacts. The common practice for some social networkers involves them adding as many people as they can even if they do not know the individual. This is totally acceptable as people join these networks in hopes of searching for new friends.

 

However, LinkedIn is different and doesn’t recommend that you add people that you don’t know although it is technically possible. In order to maximize the professional benefits that LinkedIn has to offer, it is better to connect with others the right way through proper sequencing. Follow these steps to connect with others in LinkedIn properly.

 

Adding your Personal Contacts

 

Adding your personal contacts is easy because LinkedIn’s home page right after login gives you access to a variety of tools that let you link to your e-mail account and have LinkedIn analyze your contact list and generate  a list of people that are registered in LinkedIn. Any found profiles can be added from there, but if the e-mail isn’t in the database, you can invite that person to LinkedIn instead.

 

If you take the time to build your profile, you can add former classmates as well. Other names of familiar people may show up on your profile based on your company history and other common data that you may share. The “People” search is also available for people that prefer searching their friends by searching the name one by one. It is important to add people that are extremely close to you or related to you to get a better impression from people that may check out your profile.

 

Adding your Former and/or Current Colleagues

 

The same tool that you used in connecting with your web e-mail contacts can be used in adding current and past colleagues too. Just click the “Find” button on the homepage and fill up the “Job Title”, “Company”, and years to get a list of people that you may be familiar with. This is the most important step of the process because it will affect how many 2^nd and 3^rd degree contacts you will have. The more people you have in that network, the more chances of you being introduced or recommended by some someone in your network to new people that may help you forge your career.

 

Adding 2^nd and 3^rd Degree Contacts and Others

 

Although LinkedIn discourages the idea of adding people that you don’t know, there are some features that allow these other people to be introduced properly either through a direct connection or by means of a special introductory message. To do this without major setbacks, find people that are described as “open networkers” as those people are the ones that are open to expanding their network regardless of how close the people are with others.

 

There is no need to rush when adding people to your network. Just in that sequence and you should eventually end up with a profile that has solid connections opening up more opportunities to keep in touch with all of them.