How to build a network on LinkedIn

The short answer

Post about your work so that the right people find you. Comment on their posts with something worth reading. Connect after that, not before.

Cold connection requests build a list. Being useful in public builds a network. They are not the same thing.

Post first, connect second

When you post regularly, people you have never met start to recognise your name. When you then send a connection request, they already know who you are, and they accept.

Reverse the order and you are a stranger asking for something. Most of those requests are ignored, and the ones that are accepted go nowhere.

Comments are half of it

A comment that adds something — an example, a disagreement, a question — is read by everyone who reads the post. That is often more people than read your own posts.

Pick ten people whose readers you would like to have. Comment on their posts properly, a few times a week. Within a month, some of their readers are yours.

Keep it to the people you want

A network of 5,000 strangers is worth less than 300 people who might hire you, refer you, or introduce you. Connect with the people you would actually be glad to hear from.

The test for every post and every comment is the same: would the people I want to work with find this useful?