# Is it rude to cold message strangers on LinkedIn? I messaged 133: nobody got angry, 4 said no, 31 kept talking

133 connection requests to strangers from my own account, each with a note written from their profile. 72 accepted, 43 replied. Of the 43, 31 kept the conversation going, 5 asked what I wanted, 3 said the first message sounded automated, 3 declined politely, 1 asked not to be contacted, 0 were rude. What to say when they reply, and how many follow-ups before it is spam.

You have never messaged a stranger on LinkedIn, and the reason is not time. It is the picture of someone opening your note, rolling their eyes, and typing something you would rather not read. I had the same picture. Between September 15 and October 9, from my own account, I sent 133 connection requests to people I had never spoken to, each with a short note written from their profile, and then read every reply with that picture in mind. Nobody was rude. Four said no. Thirty-one kept talking.

![What 43 strangers did after replying to a LinkedIn connection request with a note: 31 kept the conversation going, 5 asked what I wanted, 3 said the first message sounded automated, 3 declined politely, 1 asked not to be contacted, 0 were rude. 133 requests, 72 accepted, 43 replied.](https://www.scoutwith.me/blog/is-it-rude-to-cold-message-on-linkedin/tone-en.png)

## Do people get annoyed when a stranger messages them on LinkedIn?

Not one of the 133 strangers I wrote to between September 15 and October 9, 2026 was rude: 72 accepted the request, 43 wrote back, and 0 of the 43 were rude, angry or offensive, as read on October 12. This is how each of the 43 treated the approach, one category per person, read across everything they wrote:

| What the person did | People |
|---|---:|
| Answered the question and kept the conversation going | 31 |
| Asked what I wanted, or said they did not understand, without declining | 5 |
| Said the first message sounded automated, without being rude | 3 |
| Declined politely | 3 |
| Asked not to be contacted | 1 |
| Was rude, angry or offensive | 0 |

The other 90 said nothing: 61 did not accept, 29 accepted and never wrote. Silence is the usual answer to a stranger, and it is not anger. It costs nobody anything, which is why it is so common.

Twelve more people replied for the first time between October 12 and 15, after this table was read: five answered about their own work and carried on, three turned the conversation to selling me their own course or service, one was wary of the motive, one sent a stock greeting, one a compliment, one only a contact to talk elsewhere. None was rude.

Three people said the first message sounded automated. It had been drafted by software from their profile and approved by me, so they were right, and I count those three as the one real complaint in the batch. One of them kept talking anyway. The lesson is in the step I had skipped: read the draft as if it carried your name, and send back the ones that do not sound like you.

## What do you say when someone replies?

Of the 43 people who had replied by October 12, 2026, 16 went on to exchange three or more messages, and two of them wrote ten. So: less than you fear. The reply is the part that scares the person who has never done this: the note was about them, they answered, and now it is your turn with nothing prepared. Those 16 are what settled it for me.

| Messages the person wrote | People |
|---|---:|
| One | 16 |
| Two | 11 |
| Three or more | 16 |

![How many messages each of the 43 people wrote: 16 wrote one, 11 wrote two, 16 wrote three or more. The longest threads had ten messages from the person, twice.](https://www.scoutwith.me/blog/is-it-rude-to-cold-message-on-linkedin/depth-en.png)

A conversation that reaches a third message is not being carried by you. It is carried by the question you asked about them. Five people asked, before anything else, what I wanted. That is a fair question from a stranger, and it deserves one plain sentence, not a pitch.

## How many times can you follow up before it is spam?

Once. Of the 72 who accepted, 29 replied to the first message, as read on October 12, 2026; one follow-up brought back a third of the silent, and a second follow-up produced a single reply, a no. The first follow-up earns its place, the second is where the no comes from. The full count, what each message adds to the reply rate and when to send the follow-up are in [Do LinkedIn follow-ups work?](https://www.scoutwith.me/en/blog/do-linkedin-follow-ups-work)

## What happens when someone says no?

Nothing: 4 of the 43 who had replied by October 12, 2026 said no, three politely and one asking not to be contacted, and in all four cases that was the end of it, by me. One of the three who declined went on to write nine more times about something else, which says how final a polite no is: not very, as long as you do not push. The person who asked not to be contacted gets exactly that: no follow-up, ever, and off every list.

## What to do with this

1. Write the note about the person, from their profile, and read it before sending as if it carried your name. Three in 43 can tell when it does not.
2. When they reply, answer what they asked in one plain sentence, then ask one question about them.
3. Send one follow-up, a few days later. Not a second: in this batch it produced one reply, and it was a no.
4. A polite no ends it. A request not to be contacted ends it for good.
5. Expect silence from most and anger from none: 90 of 133 said nothing, 0 were rude.

Scout finds the people, reads the profiles and drafts the notes, on your computer, on your account; approving, replying and knowing when to stop stay with you.

## How these numbers were measured

- **Source:** Scout running on my own LinkedIn account, prospecting for real, for the products I sell. No data from other users of Scout; the app keeps its data on each user's computer and sends nothing to us.
- **What was counted:** connection request, sent with a note written from the profile, to someone who was not a connection; accepted, the request was accepted; replied, the person wrote at least once after accepting; tone, one category per person, read by hand across all of their messages, the one that best describes how they treated the approach; messages written, how many messages the person sent in the conversation; follow-up, how many of my messages had gone out before the person's first reply: one means they replied to the first message, two means after the first follow-up, three means after the second.
- **When:** requests sent between September 15 and October 9, 2026; everything here counted on October 12. The last week's requests are past the one-week window for acceptances but not the two-week window for replies, so the reply counts can still grow.
- **Size and rounding:** 133 requests, 43 replies. "One in three" for the first follow-up is 12 of 36.
- **Left out:** the 61 who did not accept and the 29 who accepted and did not write are not in the tone table. No message is quoted, nobody is named; only counts.
- The rules that apply to every post are in [How the numbers on this blog are measured](https://www.scoutwith.me/en/method).

This is a living page: the counts grow as replies to the last requests arrive, and the changelog below says what changed. The funnel these 43 replies came from is in [Can you get customers on LinkedIn without an audience?](https://www.scoutwith.me/en/blog/customers-on-linkedin-without-an-audience).

## Changelog

- 2026-10-12: first version. 133 requests sent September 15 to October 9; tone, depth and follow-ups of the 43 replies read on October 12.
- 2026-10-14: five more replies read (three carried on, one wary, one stock greeting, none rude), and the follow-up view with a full week to answer: 10 of 28 and 0 of 7. The tables stay as of October 12.
- 2026-10-15: seven more first-time replies read, twelve since October 12 in all (five carried on, three sold me their own thing, one wary, one stock greeting, one compliment, one contact only, none rude). The tables stay as of October 12.
- 2026-10-15: the follow-up section reduced to one paragraph; the count, the gap and the timing now live in Do LinkedIn follow-ups work?
- 2026-10-16: each question section now opens with its number, base and count date in one sentence; numbers unchanged.

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Canonical: https://www.scoutwith.me/en/blog/is-it-rude-to-cold-message-strangers-on-linkedin
Published: 2026-10-12 (updated 2026-10-16)