Don’t you just love when the sun comes out? It make everything brighter and simpler to me, does it work like that for you too?

I had a recent meeting and because it was a glorious day, we decided to “walk and talk” to appreciate the benefit of the warmth and light of the sun shining down.

Not a bad way to conduct a meeting, right?

Somehow we got onto the subject of social media, specifically ‘linked in’ and how we make use of it.

To be honest, I only joined it because someone said to me, “you should be on linked in”. Maybe that happened to you too?

I set up my account and started gathering people I knew round about me. Before I knew where I was I had invites from others and a rapidly growing connection list.

The purpose? Well I didn’t really know, but I did know that when I figured it out I would have a group of people to share it with.

For me linked in has really grown into my community, I always encourage people to look at my connections for introductions. It’s an easy way for me to refer people I know and trust to each other.

I also started a group discussion called “miworld” with the intention of “Let’s talk business”. It would be great if you can join us (if you haven’t already) and share your thoughts on the topics of the day.

So now I have a purpose for linked in, I can think a bit more of how to use it.

However, I still had one of my earliest challenges to resolve, “What do I do with people who invite me into their network – when I don’t know them? At first, I ignored them but that didn’t feel right.

I am unhappy with people I don’t know, after all how I can refer people I know and trust to my list of contact if it contains people I don’t know at all?

But then I thought, I’m always out meeting lots of people, maybe I do know them and have forgotten?

So I put together a wee paragraph to deal with the 50 invites I had chosen to ignore!

This is it:

‘Thank you for your request however I am not sure that we have met.
If we have please accept my apologies and remind me where and when.

If not, please note that I don’t usually connect to people I don’t know.

I use linked in to expand my network and introduce people I know to each other.
I do see we have many shared connections and because of this I would be happy to have a telephone call or coffee to see how we help each other in business and link in.’

I received some really good stuff back, of course some I never heard from so I didn’t feel rude ignoring them, some I had met and I could now reconnect with them, some I spoke to and others I met.

I have shared this so you can think about how linked in and other networking sites can work for you.

• What is the purpose of linked in for you?
• What effect does that have on how you use it?
• Would joining the miworld discussion group be useful for you?
• What challenges would you like to be discussed in the miworld group?

What inspiration from a walk in the sunshine!