Why and How to Clean Your LinkedIn Connections

If you’re like most early adopters of LinkedIn, you may have utilized the platform for your job search, recruiting or connecting with old coworkers. Over the years, the platform has changed quite a bit, evolving into a robust professional networking and social selling machine. You may find yourself connected to people that no longer serve you and your objectives. Examples include:

• People you’ve worked with in the past that aren’t relevant to your current situation
• Other people in the same industry that could be viewed as your competitors
• Recruiters for an industry which you are no longer a part of
• Colleagues, suppliers, partners or competitors from an industry that you are no longer a part of

Whatever the case is for you, in order for LinkedIn to be a valuable networking and selling tool for you, you’ll want your first level connections to be high quality and relevant to your objectives.

Here’s how to evaluate a connection to see if you should remain connected at the first level. Ask yourself:

• Can I be of service to this individual from a professional networking standpoint which will benefit both parties?
• Can he/she be of service to ME from a professional networking standpoint?
• Do I compete with this person for business?
• Does this person want to sell me something that I’m not interested in?
• Do I want this person to see what I’m doing to market myself or my business on LinkedIn?
• Can I learn from this connection and if so, what?
• Can they introduce me to someone of value to my network and business?
• Is there a personal reason why I want to stay connected to this person?

Answers to these questions will be the determining factor for your decision to remain connected or not. I suggest removing connections that are not serving your higher purpose. This is NOT personal . You can always connect with them on any of other social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Always keep in mind that LinkedIn is for business networking, not socially hanging out.

Once you’ve cleaned your LinkedIn connection list, you can now build it with the type of network that WILL serve your higher purpose and help you grow your business. For more information about how to handle incoming connection requests, read this article.

To learn how to remove unwanted connections, watch this two minute video I made for you, and be sure to check out our LinkedIn Lead Generation services to help you generate more business!