Social Networks

How I use LinkedIn

Connections

On LinkedIn, a follow is a pull of a user's stream of activity onto our feed. Quoting LinkedIn's blog directly:

By choosing to “follow”, you can see and interact with people you want to learn from, ranging from seeing their articles, posts, and other content. If you are seeking knowledge to solve difficult professional challenges, insights on breaking news, tips to grow in your career and much more, follow leaders across the globe to learn from. Your connections are the people you have trusted relationships with such as coworkers, alumni, business partners and friends, whereas people you follow are those who you don’t know but want to learn from. [source]

And a connection is a reciprocal follow. When a user sends a connection request, this is equivalent to a follow and a request to follow back. A connection provides the added benefit of free messaging between both users. [source]

Each connection is owned by both users, and if one of the users removes a connection, both follows are removed.

Therefore, my policy regarding connections and connection requests consists on

1. Accepting all connection requests from users that I have met.
2. Accepting connection requests from users that I have not met, who have recently and frequently posted quality, rigorous, relevant content on Linkedin (overweighting posts over comments).
3. Accepting connection requests from users that I would like to work closely with. This explicitly excludes recruiters.
4. Ignoring all other connection requests, effectively treating them like a follow.
5. Routinely reassessing existing connections under these rules.