Stop Obsessing Over How Many LinkedIn Followers You Have. Focus on These Key Metrics Instead

"Twitter (now X) that first harnessed the modern follower concept in 2006. By launching a feature called 'Friends', Twitter created the ability to track updates from others without needing a two-way friend request, effectively normalizing the idea of one-way attention. This in turn set the groundwork for an asymmetrical audience relationship that now defines pretty much the entirety of the social media landscape."

"LinkedIn came to this party late, essentially remaining a digital rolodex where you could connect with like-minded businesspeople until around 2011. It wasn't until 2012 that the platform started allowing people to follow hand-picked influencers like Bill Gates, only letting people follow strangers without connecting in 2014. By 2021, following had become the default outreach action over connecting."

"The rationale was obvious. If its greatest future value lay in scaling as a social media platform, and not purely as a business directory, then that scale could only come from audience, not connections. A single person might be able to physically accept a bulk load of connection requests at a time, but followers can accumulate 24/7 without action from the person being followed, quickly building a vast, selective, message-receptive audience far more conducive to monetization."

"Through this mechanism, rewards earned by leading voices quickly turned them into a LinkedIn creator class. Names like Jasmin Alić, Lara Acosta and Justin Welsh have become familiar to regular users-they are now established voices blessed with public speaking invites, sponsorship opportunities, online tutorials and so on, not to mention the ability to openly boost their own personal business interests."

Twitter introduced one-way follower tracking in 2006 through a feature that allowed updates to be followed without two-way friend requests. This created an asymmetrical audience relationship that became central to social media. LinkedIn initially functioned as a business directory, with connections used to link with like-minded professionals until around 2011. In 2012, following expanded to hand-picked influencers, and in 2014 it allowed following strangers without connecting. By 2021, following became the default outreach action. The shift supported scaling through audience accumulation rather than connection acceptance, enabling continuous growth and message receptivity that improved monetization and helped create a LinkedIn creator class.

Read at Inc