LinkedIn invitations without knowing the service

I‘m using LinkedIn as a professional networking tool a fair amount these days and from the looks of things so are a lot of other folks.

If you’re not familiar with the LinkedIn service but are receiving multiple invitations, Suzanne Barlyn offers some suggestions in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal (sub. req’ed).

• Set up a free personal account on LinkedIn, something that only takes a few minutes.
• Click on “Account and Settings” then scroll to “Receiving Messages.” Select the “Invitations” category, where you can direct invitations to arrive once a week or choose to read them only on the Web site.
• You can also upload a private contacts list that won’t appear online (use the “Other Contacts” tab) and choose to receive invitations from only those people. Doing this you could miss introductions and professional opportunities that may arise through other people, one the advantages of LinkedIn.

No good reason for a practicing lawyer not to have a LinkedIn account for networking. Heck, you can do nothing and the size of your network will grow sheerly through LinkedIn invites from folks you know.

Some of you will say you do not have time to figure out some fad tool, let alone use it. You’re probably the same ones who have the all the good work you want and aren’t looking to grow your business or improve the quality of your clientele.