Should You Connect With or Follow People on LinkedIn?

by Kathy Bernard

When you visit a person’s LinkedIn profile, you may see the option to follow or connect with the person. Which should you choose? For a two-way relationship with the person, opt to connect. Once the person accepts your invitation, you can send them LinkedIn messages and see and interact with their news posts. The Follow option just let’s you see and interact with their posts on your home page news feed.
If a person is not a 2nd degree connection to you (a connection of one of your LinkedIn connections), you may just see the Follow button and not the Connect option, but that’s because LinkedIn hides the option. To connect, simply click ‘More’ and then choose ‘Connect.’

High profile people, such as Bill Gates, don’t typically allow connection requests or you may need to know their email address, but you can follow them to read their posts. If you are getting too many connection requests, you can opt to only allow followers, too. To do so, scroll to the Resources section of your profile and turn ‘Creator mode’ to ‘On.’ In addition to just showing the ‘Follow’ button on your profile, Creator mode gives you access to creator tools like LinkedIn Live, audio events and newsletters to build your following.

I have Creator mode set to the ‘On’ position on my profile but accept invitations to connect – simply click ‘More’ and then ‘Connect’ to invite me to connect. I love making new friends on LinkedIn!

Kathy Bernard (kathy@wiseru.com), CEO of WiserU.com, is a St. Louis-based LinkedIn consultant/trainer who equips businesses to maximize LinkedIn for sales, marketing, or fundraising.