We hear this question all the time: “How do I manage the people wanting to connect with me on Linked In?”

We’ve come up with a few tips to help you as you navigate this part of Web 2.0:

1. Thoughtfully select those people you know and trust because these are the people you will seek advice from and request a recommendation from regarding your or other’s quality of work. Because of this, the quality of your contacts is always more important than the quantity of contacts. If you know little about the connection, you weaken the integrity of the recommendation and your network.

2. Be careful how you use the “I don’t know” feature when rejecting an invitation to connect. This could simply be a person who doesn’t know how to use invitations properly. By selecting “I don’t know,” that person is blocked from sending you another invitation in the future, but if they get that rejection from too many people they could also be restricted from sending invitations to others. If you use the “Archive” feature, you can consider their invitation at a later date if you’d like, and you won’t have reminders that you have that open invitation in your Inbox as an action item.

3. Protect yourself from unwanted invitations by turning on the “Invitation Filtering” feature. This lets you use your uploaded address book on LinkedIn as a “white list,” restricting invitations to people in your address book. You can also require that only people who know your e-mail address be allowed to connect with you. Click on “Settings” at the top of the home page and then “Invitation Settings” under “E-mail Notifications” to select the options your prefer.

Putting some careful thought into how you connect with others through Linked In will make this a more powerful tool for you to build and expand your network.