Curate to connect

A lot of crap gets written about curation and curating. I’ve done my fair bit to contribute to that body of work.

I’m not, of course, talking about traditional curation, the type you find in a museum or gallery. I mean the type that is all the rage right now and useful for a lot of people who work with content online, which I do.

But there is another use of curation which is far less audience-facing, much less about one-to-many.

One of the golden rules for using LinkedIn is Don’t just use default text. Personalise. Be real. Be different.

The classic scenario is when first connecting to someone, especially if they’re not someone you know very well or someone you’ve literally just been talking to. Don’t use this format:

But as you can use something customisable, I recommend including a useful link, at least outside of LinkedIn. (It frowns on the use of URLs at the point of connection – spam-aware, I imagine.)

It isn’t always appropriate. And don’t link to junk content, obviously.

But connection + curation is the way forward. I think it is particularly well looked upon when sending a follow-up email.

Happy connecting, linking, sharing… whatever.

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Follow Tony on Twitter – @tphallett