Handshakes and LinkedIn Connections (Just like Peas and Carrots)
Over the course of the past year, I’ve had the pleasure to foster several new vendor partnerships (B2B). In each case, an invitation to join their LinkedIn networks followed our initial project conversations. On the heels of one recent exchange, it occurred to me that an invitation to make social media alliances/associations had become a gesture grounded in normalcy – no different than adding contact info to a rolodex or data-base in the old days. Online life and offline life have aligned: tool in some cases, skill in others. It also occurs to me that although this mode of relationship-building requires little lift, it shares far deeper insight into folks who are all but strangers initially. For me, it has the makings of an unspoken trust initiator. Without much effort, you have some credibility with one other.