Send personalized congratulations on LinkedIn, not one-click ones

This months marks 5 years since I started Hot Pepper Communications.

When I put it together, it was just a side business while I went back to school to finish my degree, and when I took on a gig with a local company as their in-house communications specialist, the business took a bit of a hiatus. When I was laid off 3 years ago, I started it up full time and haven’t looked back since.

This week, LinkedIn has been notifying my contacts about my anniversary, and I’ve been receiving notifications. There’s one thing I want to highlight about this notifications, however. Out of 27 messages, only 3 didn’t look like this:

Screen Shot 2016-06-25 at 18.10.38

I like getting messages from people congratulating me, but when two dozen of the exact same message comes through, it loses its effect.

Take the extra 5 seconds to craft your own personalized, one-sentence message. It’ll mean so much more. Besides, what else were you planning to do with those 5 seconds?

By Kim Siever

I am a copywriter and copyeditor. I blog on writing and social media tips mostly, but I sometimes throw in my thoughts about running a small business. Follow me on Twitter at @hotpepper.