Connecting on Linkedin with people from other companies you work with

Question

Say your company works for others. In a certain moment, you are involved in some of these businesses, by being present in negotiations and setting up the final product in the client offices. There, you get to know some of the people your company works for, so you start wondering if it would be interesting to connect with them on Linkedin.

So, how good is it to connect with the people in the other firms you are dealing with? Do you have to wait until contracts are closer or it is also possible to do it when you are under negotiation?

Also, can this affect somehow? Either by strengthening the links with the new company or by making them feel a bit "pressured" to do deals with my company.

Answer 1

If you've worked with them enough for you to have an idea of how each other acts professionally, by all means add them.

LinkedIn is a network of peers and colleagues, not links between friends and companies. All you're doing by adding them is saying "We've worked together, would you like to connect our professional networks?"

You can endorse each other's skills, may gain some knowledge in what are presumably shared areas of professional interest, and possibly communicate outside your professional relationship.

I don't think it adds any conflict of interest, because LinkedIn doesn't server any real commercial or business function. Don't use it for direct inter-company or business communication: it's a connection between you and somebody you've worked with, nothing more.

Personally, I tend to do it once I've worked with a person enough to confidently endorse some of their skills, and that's my main motivation for adding them.

Answer 2

If your company deals in secret negotiations such as mergers and acquisitions, they may prefer the employees don't all start 'friending' with one another all at once. This could also be the case with business partners/vendors and large purchases. The competition may begin to wonder why your people are connecting to their competitors.

Otherwise, this really isn't any different then you exchanging business cards and contact information.

Answer 3

When you deal with a person who is representing his organization you are not actually interacting with the person alone,you are actually interacting with "Position + person" combination.

When you choose to interact with them out side your operation its interaction with the person.

But in reality neither the person nor the position is zero at any given point of time their weightage vary.In operation you interact more with position and out side you interact more with person.

The outside interaction will definitely increase your responsibility towards each other as you create a collective personality.A man is partially judged by connections he has professionally.

It will go positive for both of you as it does create a sense of "Known" element even if you are just a thumb image on the social network. Go ahead connecting wont do any harm.