I refer to LinkedIn as the social network tool for grown-ups. Not to say that grown-ups don’t use Myspace or Facebook (and there’s nothing wrong with that either,) but for the most part, LinkedIn is known as the “professional” social network. The reason people use LinkedIn is not for the social “coolness” that you get with networks such as Myspace, but a professional connection to other people in your area.

Nevertheless, there still seems to be cases where people are using LinkedIn for things that shouldn’t be. Many people have been adding far too many contacts then they should. Chris Brogan writes that LinkedIn wasn’t happy with the fact that his contact list had many different entries. He writes:

There were some names in the ton of folks that I invited that I didn’t directly know, but that I’d met tangentially from my work with Video on the Net. That’s at least fair. They don’t want someone blanket-spamming every email address they ever had.

Even so, people are using LinkedIn like Myspace: Friending everyone they see. That’s not how it works.

Only friend those you know well, or work for.

I don’t friend anyone that I’ve at least had some degree of contact with on LinkedIn, because I know they’re pretty much strangers to me. When I do add a person, it’s because either I know them personally offline, work for them, or have done a service to someone. The majority of people I know on LinkedIn are people I know offline. A few, such as Emily Chang of eHub, are people that I work as an editor for, and others, such as Darren Rowse of Problogger, are people that I write guest posts for. If I’m a frequent commenter on a person’s blog, I might consider it, but otherwise, I don’t friend everyone who requests it.

I personally love using LinkedIn, but it should be used solely as professional to professional linking, from friend to friend to prospective employer/gig supplier.

Technorati tags: LinkedIn, freelancing, business, networking