Connect or Follow?

Ah, Monday. I'm actually happy to see you. And you, friend.

There's a topic that's been eating at me: connection requests.

You may be wondering why. It's simple: I'm moving toward authenticity and vulnerability and I'm being intentional about giving people a glimpse into my life across all social media. Here it's a little different than other platforms, but my reason remains the same:

Are we cool?

Now, don't take that as me feeling myself because that's not it at all. Here on LinkedIn, I had to understand the difference between following and connecting with me. Following is one-directional. You see what I post, but can't message me and I don't see your content. Connecting is a mutual relationship. We can see each other's content and send direct messages to each other. Until the Great Resignation, I didn't know the difference.

Armed with that knowledge, I pruned my connections (I SO wanted to use the word cull, but it was too much). The cuts were people I knew in a previous role who I hadn't heard from since I or they left the place where we worked together. That being written, I'm completely fine with anyone subscribing to Path to Purpose and following this journey. But on the path to authenticity and my posts? Connections only going forward.

In the cut aftermath, I received a slew of follow requests, but no connection requests. If you clicked Follow, did you know the difference between Follow and Connect? If not, now knowing the difference, would you rather Connect than Follow? No hard feelings if you're cool with the weekly Path to Purpose articles, I'm simply curious.