Why LinkedIn UX should increase friction to increase quality
CONNECTION REQUESTS SPAM
This year I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of LinkedIn connection requests hitting my inbox from people I don’t know, never met, and who seemingly have no identifiable education or work history overlap with me. This is not a new phenomenon, but it seems to be on the rise, making most of my LinkedIn requests spam. These generic invitations include no introduction or description of why someone would want to connect with me. As a result, I ignore these requests most of the time. This is unfortunate, because I really do like meeting and helping people.
Since I joined LinkedIn in 2004, I’ve found it to be a valuable tool for finding people and job opportunities. Over time I’ve grown a large network and enjoyed seeing the successes of my peers as they grow in their careers. As a product manager, I’ve used it to find people to validate product ideas with, learn more about industry trends, and see what people are talking about. It surprises me then, how ineffectively many people use LinkedIn to make connections. Giving this some thought, I believe the core issue is the LinkedIn user experience (UX) for requesting connections.
THE UX PROBLEM
The real culprit behind these generic connection requests is LinkedIn. Both the web and the mobile UI interfaces are optimized for fast, frictionless, 1-click connection requests. Since connecting people is what LinkedIn does, they want to ensure you do that simply. This makes sense when I already know the person who is sending the request. When I don’t know you, however, a 1-click connection request with zero context or introduction is spam.
Once you join LinkedIn and add connections, an address book, or a calendar, they know a lot about you and your connections, even if you’re not connected on LinkedIn. Every user adds data to their social graph database. Facebook works the same way. That is, LinkedIn often already knows if someone contacting you is likely to be a 1st degree contact (existing connection), 2nd degree loose connection or association, or 3rd degree stranger (or even further away based on users’ node distance to you). Their UX treats all connection levels equally however, which prioritizes speed over quality. In the absence of LinkedIn helping you by creating better connection flows based on connection distance, there is a more effective, though slightly slower method. I.e. Accept invitation workflow friction to increase engagement. To be fair, the LinkedIn desktop flow does include a brief message to include a personal note which people mostly ignore.
Even if you don’t give Facebook access to your own contact book, it can learn a lot about you by looking through other people’s contact books.
Kashmir Hill, ‘People You May Know:’ A Controversial Facebook Feature’s 10-Year History, Gizmodo
THE OPTIONAL INTRO MESSAGE
The most underutilized feature in the LinkedIn invite flow is the optional message. I use this all the time. On the desktop it’s called “Add a note” and it’s easy to see after clicking “Connect”. On mobile, however, it is effectively hidden under an arrow menu and called “Personalize invite”.
If you reach out to someone, let them know why you want to connect, or what you hope to gain from it. Are you looking for help? Offering help or services? Looking for career advice? Since this is buried on the mobile interface it appears not to exist which is surely a cause for its lack of use. Mobile browsing exceeds desktop which is why I believe this UX results in so many ineffective invitations.
Now, I’ll admit that there are exceptions to adding an introduction. For example, are you a recruiter/talent agent/headhunter? I’ll probably connect with you. I’m not looking for a job, but perhaps one day we will find the right opportunity to speak. The second exception is the rare case that some I really want to know pops up and sends me an invite. This is unexpected and frankly uncommon, but if for example Ben Horowitz from A16Z sent me a blind invite, I’d say yes. Anytime Ben ;)
Silliness aside, connecting is easy when we already know one another. The less that’s the case, however, it’s critical to sell the connection. This doesn’t require an essay. Keep it short but effective. The smallest amount of voluntary friction in the invite process can really pay off. Of course, some of your invitations will still go unanswered. That’s life.
Ditch the spam and accelerate your connections success using short, personalized invites to reach and connect with your target contacts. This adds a small amount of additional effort, but those are the people I want to meet.
ABOUT LUKE
Luke Congdon is a career product manager living and working in Silicon Valley since 2000. His areas of focus include enterprise software, virtualization, and cloud computing. He has built and brought numerous products to market including start-up MVPs and billion-dollar product lines. Luke currently lives in San Francisco. www.LukeCongdon.com
Originally published at lukecongdon.com on August 11, 2018.
