It is possible to follow a person without being part of their network on LinkedIn. By following someone, you have access to the content they publish on their profile, without being able to interact with the person via private messaging.
This person can access your content if they are one of your “followers”.
How to follow a person on LinkedIn ?
- Simply go on their profile,
- Click on “More”,
- Click on the “Follow” button.
This method is good if let’s say, you want to have some kind of connection with a person whose content you like, or you to follow their updates.
However, if you want the person to be able to see your content as well, and if you want to be able to send them a private message at any time, you will have to send them a connection request.
To do this, simply click on the “Connect” button directly accessible from the user’s profile.
You could consider accompanying the connection request with a personalized message explaining why you want to add this person to your network, for example. As the number of contacts is limited to 30,000 on LinkedIn, you may not be able to send connection requests to certain people. In these situations, the best thing to do is to use the Follow button!
In both cases, you must have a LinkedIn profile. However, it doesn’t have to be a paid account, as both the Connect and Follow actions are available on the free plans.
Can I send a connection request to someone I am already following?
Of course you can! Nothing prevents you from wanting to connect with someone if you want to contact them via a private message for example. Please note that the prospect will need to accept your invitation first before you’ll be able to send them a private message. As mentioned previously, you can still send them an invitation note.
Tip: By leaving the “follow” button visible on your profile, you can grow your audience! Don’t hesitate to check out our tool for automating your actions on LinkedIn: Discover Waalaxy 😊
