Follow and connect on LinkedIn

Last updated: 2 weeks ago

Connections and Follows

Connections are members who connect on LinkedIn because you both know and trust each other. If you're connected to someone, you'll both be able to see each other's shares and updates on your LinkedIn feed. You can also send messages to your connections on LinkedIn. Following someone on LinkedIn allows you to see the person's posts and articles on your homepage without being connected to them. However, the person you’re following won't see your posts. By default, you will follow your 1st degree connections, and you can always unfollow them. 

You can reach a larger audience by encouraging others to follow your activity and read what you're sharing on LinkedIn, without adding 1st degree connections to your network.

Connect with people who have Follow as a primary action  

When you send an invitation to connect with someone whose primary action is Follow, you will immediately start following that person while you await their response. Even if the person denies your request to connect, you will still follow their posts, unless you manually unfollow them.

Ways to Network On LinkedIn

To ensure that LinkedIn remains a safe community, we recommend that you only send connection invitations to people you know and trust, in accordance with LinkedIn’s User Agreement and Professional Community Policies. By sending fewer and more thoughtful invitations to connect with others, you will improve the relevance of content shown in your feed, your search results, and your experience using other LinkedIn features.

Here are some alternative ways to network with others in addition to inviting someone to connect:

  • Connect when you both know each other: A connection makes sure you both stay in touch, wherever your career takes you.  
  • Follow when you want to stay in the know: If you don’t know the person, you can keep up with their posts so that you always stay informed. 
  • Send a message when you want to reach outside your network: You can now message almost any member for free, which starts a message thread if they accept it. 

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