Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash

What happened

LinkedIn released a new feature that allows pages and groups to send invitations to connect to other LinkedIn users. LinkedIn is a tool that helps people around the world grow their connections and until recently it was only possible to communicate directly person-to-person. Companies were able to create pages and groups, but it was never a main center of the platform’s attention. But now that Facebook has changed its policy turning from a regular feed to groups and events, LinkedIn decided to follow up. And among all the new features there is a possibility for companies to send invitations to fellow LinkedIn members to join their page or group.

How can you benefit from the feature

This allows the company to get their name out to people who may have never heard of it. By doing so, companies are able to gain traction and following, which could help their sales growth in the future. In turn, this is helping the company “grow their circle” and become a bigger competitor in their market.

Along with growing its market, this new feature will also help the company get a better idea of who their target is. By looking at the followers, they are able to tailor their marketing campaigns better to reach their demographic objective. Overall, this will help save money and adjust product.

This new feature also helps brand recognition. A small company could have a hard time gaining followers in their new sector. By using this feature, companies are able to get a foothold in their market and send out invitations to possible customers. 

But be careful!

With great power comes great responsibility. With LinkedIn’s invitation feature companies can become too comfortable in inviting people to join their group and could even be seen as spammers. In order to avoid this, it’s important to make sure that the people invited have an interest in what the company does or would have a need for the services offered. Think about how the follower would benefit from following you. Because if a consumer becomes frustrated with your company for the unwanted invitation, he will most likely never happen to use the company’s services in future.

It is also recommended that the company personalizes the message and not spreads the same mass invitation to every person which is always seen as spam. In order to personalize the message, you should start with a greeting by the person’s name. Also, we suggest to take the time to explain what you do and how you could help the person receiving the message. This will also be a check for the company to decide if they are “spamming” that person or if the receiver actually needs their services. Lastly, the company should always end the message with a polite goodbye to end it cordially with the possible consumer.