How do you get your first 1,000 LinkedIn followers?
Start by counting the followers you already have, because most of your first 1,000 will be connections. LinkedIn's help page on who can follow you says your 1st-degree connections automatically follow your posts and articles, and anyone else can follow you too unless you limit it. The same page says that if you limit followers to connections, your follower number becomes the same as your total connections. So your follower count is your connections plus the people who follow you without connecting.
That gives you four ways in, each documented by LinkedIn:
| Where followers come from | How it works (LinkedIn help, checked 24 Oct 2026) |
|---|---|
| New connections | Every 1st-degree connection follows your posts by default. |
| Invitations sent to you | If Follow is your main profile button, anyone who sends you an invitation follows you while it is pending, and keeps following if you decline. |
| Your posts | Post analytics count "followers gained from this post" for each post. |
| A newsletter | Subscribing to a LinkedIn newsletter also makes the reader follow its author. |
A worked example. A founder with 350 connections and 20 other followers already has about 370 followers. The gap to 1,000 is 630, smaller than the connection count alone suggests.
What should you fix on your profile first?
Fix the settings that decide whether a visitor can follow you, then the lines that tell them why they should. Check these in order:
Let everyone follow you
In Settings & Privacy, under Visibility, open Followers and set Who can follow you to Everyone on LinkedIn. With Your connections selected, there is no Follow button next to your posts.
Decide on the main button
The same screen has a toggle to make Follow the primary action on your profile. Turn it on if strangers will find you through comments and posts. People you meet can still connect from the More menu.
Rewrite the headline for one buyer
Say who you help and with what. Our LinkedIn headline examples show the pattern for founders and sellers.
Add a link and verify
Add a custom button that points to your site or newsletter. LinkedIn's page on how your content is distributed also suggests completing and verifying your profile where available, calling verifications one of many signals that you are authentic.
Skip any guide that tells you to turn on creator mode. LinkedIn's update on creator mode says the on/off toggle would be removed in March 2024 and profile hashtags from February 2024, while the sharing tools and analytics would stay. Supergrow's 0 to 1,000 followers guide, updated 12 November 2025, still tells readers to turn it on and choose topics.
How narrow should your topic be?
Narrow enough that a buyer can tell from three posts what you will post next: one audience and two or three topics. A large follower count that doesn't match your buyer is worth little. The person who started an r/LinkedInTips thread after reaching 20,000 followers in 3 years put it this way in April 2026: "The more followers you have, the more non-relevant followers you have = lower total engagement rate." That is one person's experience. You can check whether it applies to you.
LinkedIn's audience analytics break down your followers by job title, location, industry, seniority, company size and company, with the top five shown for each. Check the job title view once a month. If your top five titles aren't people who could buy from you, more of the same posts will probably add more of the wrong followers.
For topics, LinkedIn's distribution page suggests news that affects professionals, deep industry insight, lessons you've learned and ideas, and warns against being overly promotional. Our post on what 360Brew is and why sticking to two or three topics matters now explains the case for staying narrow.
Do comments or posts get you followers faster?
Comments, at the start. LinkedIn says each post is shared with a subset of your connections and followers, so at 370 followers a post starts with a small audience. A good comment sits under someone else's post in front of their audience. LinkedIn's own distribution page lists two ways to build your reputation and followers: frequently sharing content your community can relate to, and reacting to and commenting on other members' posts and articles.
Practitioners say the same. In an AMA by someone reporting more than 100,000 followers, with about 70 comments when checked on 24 October 2026, the person who ran it wrote: "Commenting on other people's posts, I would argue, is more important than creating content." The same r/LinkedInTips AMA thread describes a 5-5-5 rule: five days a week, five connection invites a day and five comments a day. In an r/linkedin thread on growing followers organically, with about 30 comments when checked on 24 October 2026, the top-voted reply says intelligent comments seem to draw new followers, and at least four other replies recommend commenting. One reply disagrees, arguing that most comments are seen only by the person who wrote the post.
What makes a comment worth following: a number, an example from your own work, or a reasoned disagreement. Our breakdown of Jasmin Alić's comment-first strategy shows how one LinkedIn coach structures them.
Should you send connection requests to grow followers?
Yes, to people you have already talked to, and in small numbers. LinkedIn's guide to following and connecting says to only send invitations to people you know and trust. Its invitation limit page says every member, free or Premium, is subject to invitation limits, and a restriction typically lasts one week. LinkedIn's newer page on personalising invitations says free members can add a personalised note to three connection requests a month (the older invitation limit page says five).
The AMA author described a way to make requests less cold: when starting out, they connected with active people in their industry and commented on one of their posts before sending an invite. By then the person has seen your name.
Here is what a modest pace adds over 12 weeks. The acceptance rate is our assumption for the example, not a measured figure:
| Source | Weekly effort | 12-week total | Followers in the example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point | None | 350 connections, 20 followers | 370 |
| Connection requests | 5 a weekday (25) | 300 requests | 150 if half accept |
| Posts | 2 | 24 posts | 480 needed: 20 per post |
| Total | 1,000 |
The posts row is the hard part. Unless your network is larger, reaching 1,000 in 90 days needs about 20 new followers for every post, or about 40 a week from posts and comments together. New followers can only come from people who don't follow you yet, so your posts and comments have to travel beyond your current network. Our guide to LinkedIn's connection request limits in 2026 covers what free and Premium accounts can send.
A 90-day plan from zero to 1,000
Spend the first week on the profile, then repeat the same week for 12 weeks. Post twice a week, which matches the cadence in Sandra L's four-step guide to the first 1,000 followers (November 2024) and the one or two posts a week the AMA author suggested to a commenter with few followers, though the same author told another commenter to post at least five days a week.
Week 1: settings, headline, link
Do the four profile fixes above. Write down your buyer, your two or three topics and your current follower count.
Every weekday: five comments
Turn on post notifications for 10 to 20 people your buyers follow and comment early with something specific.
Every weekday: five requests
Send them only to people whose posts you have commented on or who have engaged with yours.
Twice a week: one post
One lesson, story or opinion on your topics. Reply to every comment the same day.
Week 6: start a newsletter
LinkedIn says all members can create a newsletter. Its newsletter page says you can invite all your connections or followers to subscribe when you create one, and people who start following you later get an automatic invitation to subscribe.
Every Friday: check the numbers
Note total followers, then open the analytics of each post and read "followers gained from this post". Do more of the formats that gain followers.
For how many posts a busy founder can keep up beyond the first 90 days, see our guide on how often to post on LinkedIn.
How long does it really take to get 1,000 followers?
Expect months, and measure it weekly. Both growth stories in these threads took years. The 20,000-follower founder took 3 years, which works out at about 556 followers a month on average. The AMA author said reaching more than 100,000 took about 3.5 years, about 2,381 a month on average. Neither said how that growth was spread over time, so the averages say nothing about the first year.
LinkedIn's post analytics show what to watch: impressions, the share of impressions from in network and out of network, members reached and followers gained per post. A rising out-of-network share means more of your impressions come from people who don't follow you and aren't connected to you, the only place new followers can come from.
If the routine is the hard part, Siela's Social Media agent can post in your voice at the pace you set, like and comment, and send up to 5, 10 or 20 LinkedIn connection requests a day, with each post and comment checked by a second AI reviewer. You can ask to see every post first.
Frequently asked questions
Do LinkedIn connections count as followers?
Yes. LinkedIn's help centre says your 1st-degree connections automatically follow your posts and articles. If you limit followers to connections only, LinkedIn says your follower number becomes the same as your total connections. So your follower count is your connections plus anyone who follows you without connecting. That is why the first 1,000 usually starts with your existing network.
Should I make Follow the primary button on my LinkedIn profile?
Turn it on if most new people will find you through your posts and comments. With Follow as the primary action, anyone who sends you a connection invitation follows you while it is pending and keeps following if you decline. People who know you can still send a connection invitation from the More menu on your profile.
Is creator mode still needed to grow LinkedIn followers?
No. LinkedIn's help page said the creator mode on/off toggle would be removed in March 2024 and profile hashtags from February 2024. It says members keep the same sharing tools and analytics, and members who meet the access criteria get tools such as LinkedIn Live, audio events and newsletters. Guides that tell you to switch creator mode on are out of date.
Does a LinkedIn newsletter help you get followers?
It can. LinkedIn says subscribing to a newsletter also makes the reader follow its author, and that people who start following someone with a newsletter automatically get an invitation to subscribe. When you create one, LinkedIn lets you invite all your connections or followers. All LinkedIn members can create a newsletter, according to its help centre.
How many connection requests can I send a week on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn's invitation limit page gives no number. It says every member, free or Premium, is subject to invitation limits, and that reaching them may bring a temporary restriction that typically lasts one week. It also asks members to invite only people they know and trust, and lets free members add a personalised note to five requests a month.
Sources
- LinkedIn Help: Manage who can follow you settings (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Follow and connect on LinkedIn (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Updates to Creator Mode (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Distribution of your content on LinkedIn (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Invitation limit reached (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: LinkedIn Newsletters (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: LinkedIn Newsletter access criteria (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Post analytics for your content (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: View your creator analytics (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Supergrow: How to grow on LinkedIn from 0 to 1000 followers in 30 days (updated 12 Nov 2025)
- Sandra L, LinkedIn Influence Insider: 4 proven steps to your first 1,000 LinkedIn followers (published 7 Nov 2024)
- r/LinkedInTips: AMA, over 100,000 followers and 600,000 to 800,000 impressions a week (July 2026)
- r/linkedin: How to grow organic followers in LinkedIn? (August 2026)
- r/LinkedInTips: 5 thoughts on growth on LinkedIn after reaching 20k followers (April 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Personalize invitations to connect (checked 24 Oct 2026)