The INs of LinkedIn
Whether you're looking for a new job, business opportunities, or industry insight, having a network of trusted personal connections has become more important than ever. And there's no question that LinkedIn has become THE online social marketing tool for professional networking.
However, some of the site's features can be confusing, notably the three INs: Invitations, Introductions, and InMails. (Sometimes clever is at odds with clarity.) So this post explains the difference between the three concepts and how to use them.
Invitations
An Invitation is when you ask someone to join your direct network, which will make the person a 1st-degree connection. There are two main places to send an Invitation from. (NOTE: Any live link below will only work if you're actually logged into LI.)
From the Contacts page.
Click Contacts in the left-hand navigation panel, then click the Add Connections link at the top, right-hand corner.
Enter the names and e-mail addresses of people you want to connect with then click the Send Invitation(s) button.
Note that if you click the "Edit/preview invitation text" link, the form will expand so you can personalize the message. I highly recommend this from an etiquette point of view. When people send me an invitation but haven't bothered to edit the text in any way, I feel more like some random person taken off a direct mail list than a valued colleague.
From an individual member's profile.
You can find people you know from the Search box at the top of any page or from the Connections list of people who are already in your network.
Click the "Add [PERSON] to your network" link on the top right of the person's profile page.
There's no limit on the number of invitations you can send out at a time but LinkedIn wants to make sure that you have some legitimate relationship with the people you're inviting. So, when you invite someone from her profile page, you'll be asked what that relationship is.
Example
Let's say I wanted to connect with Jane Doe, whom I went to university with. When I click "Add Jane to your network", I'll be prompted to say how I know her.
If I say we were colleagues, a dropdown box will appear that will list all the places I've worked that I've included on my own LI profile. If I say we were classmates, it will ask me to pick from all the schools I've listed, etc.
When I select the one we both attended, LI will send an e-mail to Jane saying something like, "Elizabeth Kricfalusi has indicated you are a Classmate at Queen's University." That gives Jane a point of reference as to who I am. (You can still add your own personal message to the Invitation as well.)
Now, if I haven't worked together or gone to school with Jane or had some other listed relationship with her (maybe she gave me her business card at an event), I'll be asked to provide her e-mail address.
NOTE: The above assumes that Jane already belongs to LinkedIn. If she doesn't, I can still invite her (by providing her e-mail address), and she'll get an e-mail asking her to sign up for the service first and then join my network.
So those are how Invitations work.
Introductions
An Introduction, on the other hand, is when you ask someone in your network to pass on a message to someone in their network. (It only works for people up to three degrees of separation from you.) You get to the Introduction form from a link at the bottom of the person's profile that says "Get introduced through a connection."
Example
If Jane knows Bob Smith, but I don't, that makes him a 2nd-degree connection to me and so I can't contact him directly. Instead, I would send an Introduction request to Jane with my note to Bob attached. She would then forward my note on to him (if she wants to), and she can add her own message, e.g. "Hey Bob. I'm passing on this message from Elizabeth, a friend I went to university with. She has some questions about a job posting at your company." Then Bob can decide whether or not to reply to my message. During this process, I will not see Bob's e-mail address myself because I'm not directly linked to him.
NOTE: Everybody in the chain sees all the messages that came before them. So Bob would see both my original message and Jane's note. (And if there's one more link—the maximum allowed—the last person will see everything from everybody.) On the other hand, I will not see what anybody has written to the people after them. Nor will I have any way of tracking who has received it.
With a free basic membership, you can only have 5 outstanding Introduction requests at a time. If Bob replies to me, that frees up one of my requests. If he doesn't reply, the request will expire at some point (you can also choose to withdraw it if you haven't heard back), and that will free up a request as well.
By upgrading to one of LI's business plans, you can have a higher number of Introduction requests open at a time as well as some other benefits.
InMails
InMails allow you to send messages to people you're not connected to within three degrees. You have to pay for InMail privileges, either by upgrading to a business plan, or by purchasing an individual InMail at $10 each. (You can get to this link from your Account & Settings page).
There may be times when you want to contact someone who is not within 3 degrees of you. That's where InMails come in.
Example
I might do an Advanced Search and find a Communications Manager at Microsoft that I would like to send a note to describing my writing services. If that person is not in my extended network, I'll see the listing, but not the person's name or e-mail address. To send a note to him directly, I can purchase an InMail.
That person will get my message in his LI inbox and can choose to reply or not. If he does, then I'll be able to see his name.
I might need an InMail even if I already know the name of the person from another source, e.g. through a Google search or the company's website. I can then look up the person's name on LI and find his profile. In that case, even though I have the name, if he's not in my network, I'd still have to use an InMail to contact him.
You might also want to use an InMail to contact someone already within your network if you don't want to use your connections to make an Introduction. So even if Jane Doe knows Bob Smith, I might not want to bother Jane (or have her read my note to him), so I could buy an InMail for that.
Finally, you can use InMails when you want to contact someone but you've already used up your maximum number of Introduction requests. (Of course, you can always withdraw one of the requests to free one up.)
If the person you sent the InMail to doesn't reply within 7 days, LI will re-credit you so you can use that InMail again to write to someone else.
NOTE: LI members can set their profiles to not accept Introductions or InMails at all, in which case you would have to find a way to contact them outside of LinkedIn. On the flip side, some people will set their profiles so you can contact them directly without an InMail, even if they're not in your network. I mostly see this in profiles for HR professionals.
Whew! That was a lengthy explanation, but I hope it will help clear up the differences between Invitations, Introductions, and InMails so you can get to work on building up your own network.