 Our personal brands were never meant to exist in a silo. In fact, our brands are best amplified when we build a community around our brands. It could be a community of current clients or collaborators or a community of people who respect the work that we do and the content that we create. LinkedIn, in my opinion, is the best social media platform for hospitality professionals to grow their respective communities. And in today's video, we're exploring ways that you can send LinkedIn invitations to potential community members. Stick around. Hey, everyone, it's Leanne, and I'm a firm believer that our personal brands are only as strong as the impact we make on our communities. I'm also passionate about using LinkedIn as our industry's chosen platform. With over 294 million active users, it's a great platform to cultivate relationships and nurture our clients. It's where our industry professionals come together to network, build their brand, and make connection. And it's where I predominantly hang my hat and have so for many years. I've built my business using inbound marketing strategies on LinkedIn, and it's where I find the most personal brand traction and opportunities. It's through my LinkedIn community's growth that I've been able to attract the opportunities. However, sending and receiving LinkedIn invitations does have some etiquette involved. So today, we're looking at some best tips and practices for extending LinkedIn invitations and accepting those that we receive. But before we look at these six LinkedIn invitation tips, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and click on that little bell to be notified of new content. I create content around LinkedIn and personal branding for the hospitality each week, and I don't want you to miss any of the content. So let's look at these six ways that you can set your brand apart using LinkedIn invitations. Tip number one, send a personalized message. Now by default, LinkedIn will send a generic message, something like, hi, my name is Leanne. I'd like to join your LinkedIn network. But if you really wanna stand out, modify that generic message and personalize it using points of reference. Let them know why you'd like to connect with them and reference one of the below. For example, where did you first hear or learn of this individual? Was it at a networking event or perhaps in a podcast or a clubhouse room? Or perhaps their thoughtful comment on a post caught your attention. Make sure you make reference to this place and give that person some common ground and reason for connecting with you. You can also reference common connections. Do you have a mutual professional connection or colleague or thought leader that you both follow? Ensure that you reference these common connections as a way to build the bridge of trust towards your new connection. Or reference common groups or interests if you belong to the same LinkedIn group, mention the group and ask about their experience within the group. And of course, there's bonus points in it for you if you reference a discussion from the group that you feel your new connection might find value in. Tip number two, provide value. You can really stand out with this one by providing either a resource, a tip list, a checklist or some other resource that your connection would find of value. Reference the work that they do or another interest that they have and give this valuable insight in exchange for nothing. Give it freely to your new connection without the expectation of a return gift. And if you receive LinkedIn invitations, give that gift to them as well when you accept their invitation. Tip number three, don't start the relationship with the hard sell. As with most social media platforms, the hard sell is not going to fly on LinkedIn either. LinkedIn is where you want to start selling you and your personal brand in order to create that bridge of trust. If you try with the hard sell, especially in that initial connection request, you're going to lose interest from your new connection. Once you've built that trust with your new connection, then you can start to weave in your product or your offering. By then you'll have built up some credibility and trust and that transition will be much easier. But make that initial connection request about them and meeting their pain points and their problems. Tip number four, like, share and comment on their content. Engage with your second or third degree connections by engaging in their content before you even send a connection request. They'll see your name and your comment prior to the connection request, thus making the request a little bit more warm in nature. When you extend the invitation, thank them for their content right in the request and maybe post a thoughtful comment or ask a thoughtful question in return. Engaging in other comments also increases your visibility to the other members of their network. So whenever you're interacting with content on LinkedIn, go beyond the like button and try to leave a thoughtful comment. Tip number five, tag your second degree connection when you see some like-minded content. When a piece of content pops up and you think that that second degree connection may find value in it, tag them thoughtfully in the comments of that particular post. Your second degree connection will see that tag in their notifications and maybe then making your request will be more relevant. Remember, only tag people on content that you think that they would find interesting or valuable. You do not wanna come across as spammy by just blind tagging people on pieces of content. Tip number six, don't forget to nurture your advocates. Extend the invitations to those that have engaged with your content already. Perhaps they left a comment or a like on one of your posts. This is a great way to find other community members to help grow your personal brand with like-minded individuals that will appreciate your content. Are you currently using LinkedIn to grow your network of community members? Let me know in the comments below if LinkedIn is a strategy that you're using as a hospitality professional. And if you're looking for additional tips and tricks on how to use LinkedIn, I've created a playlist of all of my LinkedIn content and you can access that video playlist right here. And if you're curious about how you can create content to attract your LinkedIn community, I'm hosting a five days, five ideas, LinkedIn content challenge, where you can explore five of LinkedIn's most popular content formats to create engagement with your audience. You can access the challenge details at liankholderwood.com forward slash LinkedIn challenge. My friend, I encourage you to use LinkedIn as a platform to grow and nurture your personal brand. And if you see me over on LinkedIn, make sure that you extend an invitation and say hi. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time. Bye for now.