Follow or Connect on LinkedIn?

Follow or connect on LinkedIn?

What are the benefits of each???

Following the launch of Creator Mode for personal profiles and LinkedIn’s promotion of that, many people have switched.? This means that the ‘Follow’ button is more often used.

But is that the right thing for you, your business and your goals for LinkedIn?

Do you want more followers or more connections?

Before you can answer this question you might want to know what the difference is between a Connection and a Follower

A follower has the potential to see your posts and articles. They are more likely to see your content in their newsfeed. They can follow you without your agreement. But you cannot direct message them and they cannot direct message you unless InMail is used.

You will be notified when someone follows you but not if they unfollow you.

The ‘Follow’ button comes into its own when you are solely interested in the content they are posting.

The number of followers you have is not something you are in control of - people decide to follow you.

The ‘Follow’ button appears on your profile and on your content (see below).

If your profile is in Creator Mode, the ‘Follow’ button will appear automatically.? If you have a 'normal' personal profile style then you have to change ‘Connect’ to ‘Follow’ in your Settings.

A connection is someone who has requested to connect with you and you have accepted. Or vice versa.?

You will have the potential to see each other's posts in the news feed and you will both get notified of updates and anniversaries etc. But the big difference is that you can direct message each other on LinkedIn.?

This is very important to my business so that I am able to nurture relationships and generate interest in working with me, finding partnerships, referrals, podcast interview opportunities etc... Over three quarters of my new clients and opportunities come from connecting with new people and messaging.??

When someone connects with you they automatically become a follower too.? Although they can choose to unfollow you and stay connected but you won't be notified of this either.

When someone sends you an invitation to connect, and if your primary action is ‘follow’, they will immediately become a follower while they await your response.

If you have a personal profile in Creator Mode, then ‘Follow’ is the default setting.? If you wish to connect with a person who has Creator mode switched on, you can - just click the ‘More..’ and then ‘Connect from the dropdown menu.??

So now that you understand the difference, which is the most desirable?

First of all, let’s focus on the main question that this article seeks to answer, which is the pros and cons of the 'Follow’ and ‘Connect’ buttons, having Followers or Connections?

A ‘Follow’ button can save you time

If one of your main goals or strategies is to be seen as an expert on LinkedIn you will need to put in a lot of effort into your own content, and engaging on other people’s content. Doing this increases your visibility and will generate a lot of connection requests from people who want to see more of your content. Then you will have to wade through each connection request to decide if you want to connect.??

But having the ‘Follow’ button means zero effort on your behalf. People can follow you, read and, hopefully, engage in your content, simply by clicking ‘Follow’ on any one of your posts. Or clicking the ‘Follow’ button on your profile.? Note: Your Visibility settings need to be set to ‘Everyone on LinkedIn’ for people to be able to follow you.

LinkedIn has limits on number of invitations you can send

LinkedIn imposes a limit of 100 invitations a week to try to stop the level of spam on LinkedIn and to encourage us to move to their paid services.

So, in theory, if the prime reason to connect is to see someone's content then a ‘follow’ is good enough.? This way, you can save your own Connection request for people you specifically want a conversation with.

A downside of the Follow button….

• There is the potential to miss opportunities. If people want to message you and they do not realise how to connect with you then it is likely that they will move off of your profile onto someone else’s.?
• Assuming that people have followed you because they want to follow your content, potentially your views will increase and, hopefully, so will the engagement.? However, my news feed is still full of content from my 1st connections NOT content from the people I follow.? I, and many others, have not seen any upturn in our content engagement so I have to assume that people who follow me do not see my content in their feed either.
• If they are interested in doing business with you it would be more tricky as you are not connected to each other. They would have to send an InMail. Or know that the Connect link is hidden in the drop-down menu under ‘More’ on your profile.
• Having a huge following or connections is impressive. But a large following does not necessarily bring you any more traction on your content. I have seen people with 1,000 connections get consistently fantastic engagement on their content and people with huge numbers of followers and connections get very little.??
• You have little control over the quality of your following. I would rather have quality over quantity.
• Followers see less of your content than your connections.

We are all on LinkedIn for TWO WAY communication. Or at least I hope so. This is why I prefer connecting.

Why I prefer Connecting to Following

When someone asks to connect with you and you accept, it gives you the opportunity to start a relationship and explore possibilities.?

By connecting and starting conversations I have found:-

• people I want to employ
• people I can do business with
• useful contacts for my clients?
• new clients
• people whom I can connect with other people
• opportunities to speak at events
• podcast guest opportunities?

How many of those would I have missed if I hadn’t connected?

My 1st degree connections enrich my LinkedIn experience.

What is a good strategy around following and connecting?

• Every week, check out the people who have followed you and see if you would like to connect with them. If so, send a connection request
• Develop a clear connection strategy.? Don’t fill your network with your peers! Connect with potential clients, people you are interested in supporting you in your business, people who post content that you are interested in, podcasters and radio show owners/, bloggers, summit and event organisers, influencers who interest you, people with whom you might want to partner with.
• As all of our Connections become Followers automatically, you may find that there is some content in your newsfeed that you would rather not see. If you want to stop seeing someone's content in your feed, simply go to their profile and click on the ‘More’ button under their profile banner and the drop down will give you the option to unfollow.
• Set yourself a target number of people to approach each week.
• Give your network a spring clean. Download your first connections. LinkedIn will send you a .csv file of them all

The bottom line is Connect with people you wish to have a conversation and relationship with, and Follow people who write interesting content.

Your Next Action

1. Want to know exactly how to use LinkedIn to gain a consistent stream of new clients? Book a call with me here, www.traceyburnett.com/book

2. Take my 5 minute Quiz - How Ready Are YOU To Get MORE CLIENTS on LinkedIn? See if you are a LinkedIn Ninja or Newbie? https://traceyburnett.com/how-ready-are-you-to-get-new-clients-on-linkedin/

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