It's Alright if You Miss the Mark - As Long As You Know How to Fix It

Or, What I Learned by Not Making My 500 New Connections Quota in the First Semester

LinkedIn is my favorite social media platform. I like it more than Facebook, definitely more than Twitter, and it battles Instagram in my mind, almost daily.

I thought making 500 College of Charleston connections would be very easy for me this semester, my first semester working at the College. Well, it turns out, the task was a bit harder than I thought and that I fell short of the target.

Let me be clear - I made over 300 alumni connections from January until May. And the number continues to grow....but, I did not quite hit 500 by the end of the semester. I also know why I didn't, and the tools of the system that helped me identify how close I came.

So I know I've missed the mark and the LinkedIn search features helped me identify which of my new connections are College of Charleston alumni, and which are staff and employees affiliated with the College. ( I think those count too.)

This search yields 317 first level connections.

The second search of employees and colleagues that work at the College, yields 85 connections.

That totals 402....not bad, but not quite 500. I can also view the number of invitations that I've sent since the semester started. Those equal over 150. Identifying sent invitations, or pending invitations, is easy....just google it. LinkedIn has answered this question for its' FAQs in the form of Withdrawing an Invitation. But just work backwards, and you can find the answer.

Bottom Line: Analytics (on any platform) help you recognize how close you're getting to your goal, and can help you identify how to get there.

It's okay if you miss the mark, initially. Failure counts if lessons are learned. You win if you can answer the question, "How do you solve the problem you're now facing?" In this case, the question is, "how do you get to that 500 number?"

My answer is simple and the solution is a gift. I have interns!!!

Update: With the help of my student interns, I have reached and exceeded the 500 mark for College of Charleston alumni connections!

Now it's time to build.