When someone cold contacts me I always check out their linkedin and verify everything.

You may also want to consider building a network on Linkedin and re-posting your blogs there to help drive traffic to your site.

I met a private lender on LinkedIn.

You'll often find a FB page or LinkedIN page you can message them from.  

When I get a colleague request from someone, most of the time, its accompanied with a message so I know first who they are, and second why they are reaching out specifically.But sometimes, I get a colleague request from a name I know nothing about... not sure if they reached out related to a forum post, or if they want to pitch me on something that I may or may not be interested in.Kind of reminds me of LinkedIn, where my approach has always been I don't connect with any random person, only those that I have either met in person, or have interacted with in some business sense.

You can connect with them directly.Lastly, I'd check BP, FB, LinkedIn, meetup.com and other platforms for local meetups.Best of luck to you on your journey and feel free to reach out anytime!

They contacted me on LinkedIn about applying for a low interest loan. 

I do a lot of networking on LinkedIn.

The most effective means to reach people, social media encompasses everything from Facebook and LinkedIn to personal blogs.

LinkedIn?