Connecting via LinkedIn

I have been using LinkedIn for a number of years as a tool to stay in touch with people. In the past few years I have been using it for business development. In my experience people do not always reply to an invitation to connect - I have found a way to change this. I recently started sending a thank you note to people I meet via a LinkedIn invitation. I write a personal note thanking them for meeting with me and at the end I include “If you use LinkedIn, I would like to connect with you”. I have seen my acceptance percentage increase as well as the time it takes someone to accept.