Certain social business to business platforms are infamous breeding grounds for what I call ‘social media beggars’. There is absolutely no use in adding friends and then trying to flog your services or latest product without building up a relationship with the person first. Furthermore, ask permission first, before blasting off unwanted, unsolicited invites and sales pitches.

The chance of someone taking up your offer will be much better, if you can first add value by either giving advice or just making friendly contact (also not a generic intro email that you send to everyone).

Yes, business to business networks CAN help you generate leads, but you’ll need to learn how to effectively use them to your advantage.

A good entry point is to monitor, who’s asking questions that relate to what you do, and what you offer. Provide some insights, free of charge, and mention that if the person is interested, to contact you for further discussion.

When adding so call friends or contacts, try and write a meaningful message, giving the person an idea of why you want to add them to your network, or where you found their details, so that it adds context to the request.

Most of us are too busy to accept all friend/contact requests and want to know up front what it’s about.

I recently had someone request to be added as a contact, telling me they have a cool new product that might be of interest. Upon further enquiry, he came back to say that it’s still in development, and a secret, so he couldn’t tell me about it. Now what’s the use of that? Make sure you DO have something of value to add, or don’t make the request.

Your tone of message is also very important. It’s so easy to come across as ‘wanting’. The same applies within real life networking events. If you have the attitude of wanting something when you first meet someone, it creates a negative first impression and it’s all downhill from there. SO, be helpful and don’t ask someone ‘what can you do for me’ or ‘what can I do for you’ if you don’t get the impression that they are in need of using your services. Tell them what you do and that if they’re interested, you’ll contact them with more information.

Apply these techniques and let us know if they worked!