Who Can I Invite to Join My LinkedIn Network?

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Today I received a question from a LinkedIn newbie which reminded me that sometimes I need to get back to basics and answer simple questions that sometimes may be confusing to others.  The question I got today, although worded differently, is someone that is worried about sending out invitations to people that were 2nd degree connections, i.e. people that should be 1st degree connections but weren’t.  It really comes down to the basic question of who to invite join our LinkedIn networks?

While there is no single rule as to who to invite as this depends on your reason why you joined LinkedIn, it does call for an explanation on your network and the notion of 1st degree, 2nd degree, and 3rd degree connections.

Getting back to the question at hand, there is absolutely no issue with what this person did from my perspective.  In fact, the idea behind LinkedIn is:

1. Even though someone maybe part of your actual network, they only become 1st degree connections after one of you accept each other’s invites
2. Whether someone is a 2nd degree, 3rd degree or even more distant connection, so long as you know their email address (or are a member of the same group), you can invite them or anyone into your network.  Obviously you will want to know someone well enough so that they recognize you and thus accept your invite, unless you are reaching out to LIONs or open networkers (in which case there is still no guarantee that they will accept your invite…)
3. You will always have the option of withdrawing an invite by searching for your original sent invitation in the Inbox and selecting the withdraw button which then appears.  Unfortunately, this wastes one of your invitations but can be done.

So, to answer your question, you did nothing wrong, and should not worry that the person you invited is a 2nd degree connection!  If I missed the point of your question please let me know!