I NEVER accept a Facebook friend request or a LinkedIn invitation to connect from a company. DUH! You are not a company. You are a person that incorrectly set up your LinkedIn profile.
Please feel free to copy and paste my standard response below as a reply email to anyone who sends you an email to become friends on Facebook with or connect on LinkedIn with their "Locksmithing Company" or "Real Estate Agency." It's written for LinkedIn, but minor edits will make it apply to most social media platforms.
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Hello, I received an invitation to "connect" with your business. Your have incorrectly set up your LinkedIn profile. Businesses can't have personal LinkedIn "connections." Businesses should create company or organization "pages" and you as an owner should have a personal profile where you are identified as an individual, by role at the company and THEN you can invite others to connect with you personally and/or "follow" your company. Your profile isn't a person's profile it is currently set up as basically a Yellow Pages ad. Businesses who set pages up as "people" either don't understand Linkedin's policies, or worse are purposefully attempting to use LinkedIn as a direct mail/spam marketing device. LinkedIn is designed to be a networking tool for people, NOT a solicitation tool for companies. If you want to connect as a person, please send me another invitation from a person's profile.
Also, some companies and individuals send bulk direct messages to their contracts. If they are sending unsolicited marketing or sales offers, they are spamming their contacts and they are violating anti-spam laws, they are in violation of LinkedIn's Terms of Service and they are abusing their relationships with their contacts. There are staff members of a Northern Arizona radio station that are notorious for this egregious spamming practice. I hope this is not one of your practices.
Good luck with your business.
Also, some companies and individuals send bulk direct messages to their contracts. If they are sending unsolicited marketing or sales offers, they are spamming their contacts and they are violating anti-spam laws, they are in violation of LinkedIn's Terms of Service and they are abusing their relationships with their contacts. There are staff members of a Northern Arizona radio station that are notorious for this egregious spamming practice. I hope this is not one of your practices.
Good luck with your business.
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Feel free to edit the above message to fit your circumstances and degree of annoyance.
