How to Get More Followers on LinkedIn (That Actually Stick)

Okay, let’s be honest: figuring out how to get more followers on LinkedIn can feel like shouting into a very well-dressed void. So here’s the reassuring short version first. You get more followers on LinkedIn by making it obvious who you help and why anyone should care (a sharp profile or page), then showing up consistently with posts that teach, share a real point of view, or start a conversation — and by engaging generously in other people’s comments so the right people keep bumping into your name. Do that steadily, and follows stop being something you chase and start being something you earn. That’s the whole engine, and I promise it’s more doable than it looks.

Now, there’s a personal-profile version of this and a company-page version, and they don’t grow the same way. So stick with me — I’m going to walk you through both, the way I’d do it sitting right next to you, and hand you a weekly system you can actually keep.

Why is it so hard to get followers on LinkedIn?

Here’s the part nobody tells you: LinkedIn isn’t hard because you’re doing it wrong — it’s hard because most people treat it like a digital resume they update once a year. The bar for standing out is genuinely low, which is fantastic news for you the moment you decide to actually show up.

The other thing worth understanding is how a follow happens. Almost nobody wakes up and thinks, “I’d like to follow a stranger on LinkedIn today.” A follow is a reaction. Someone sees a post of yours in their feed, or a smart comment you left on someone else’s, clicks your name out of curiosity, lands on your profile, and thinks, “oh, I’d like more of this.” Then they follow. That means growth isn’t one lever — it’s a little chain: get seen, spark curiosity, reward the click, earn the follow. Every tactic in this guide is really about strengthening one link in that chain.

So before we talk posting, let’s make sure that when someone does click your name, they don’t bounce.

How do you set up a profile that turns visitors into followers?

Think of your profile as a landing page, because that’s exactly what it is. Someone curious about your comment lands here, and in about three seconds decides whether you’re worth following. Let’s make those three seconds count.

Your headline is not your job title

The single biggest wasted space on LinkedIn is the headline that just says “Marketing Manager at Company.” That tells a visitor your role, not why they should care. Instead, use your headline to say who you help and how. Something like “I help B2B founders turn LinkedIn into a pipeline — practical posts on content and sales” instantly tells a stranger what following you gets them. Lead with the value, not the title.

Your photo and banner do quiet, heavy lifting

Use a warm, clear headshot where your face is actually visible — no distant vacation photo, no logo where a face should be. Then use your banner (that wide image up top) as free advertising: your tagline, who you serve, or a simple visual that reinforces your topic. A blank gray banner reads as “nobody’s really home here.” A thoughtful one reads as “this person takes their presence seriously.”

Write an “about” section that talks to one person

Open your About section by speaking directly to the person you help — their problem, in their words — before you ever mention yourself. Then explain what you do about it, and sprinkle in a little proof (what you’ve built, who you’ve helped). Write it the way you’d talk, not the way a press release talks. And weave in the natural search terms your audience uses, because your profile is searchable both on LinkedIn and on Google.

Add a clear “why follow me” line

End your About with a plain invitation: “Follow along for weekly, no-fluff posts on X.” It sounds almost too simple, but telling people what they’ll get and inviting them to follow genuinely nudges more of them to do it. You’re removing the guesswork.

How often should you actually post on LinkedIn?

I’m not going to hand you a magic number, because anyone who promises one is guessing about your audience. Here’s the honest guidance instead: post often enough that people remember you exist, at a pace you can sustain for months, not weeks. For most people that lands somewhere between two and five times a week. If that feels like a lot, start with two. A steady two-a-week for six months will build more of a following than seven posts in one caffeinated week followed by three months of silence.

The real answer to “how often” comes from watching your own numbers. Post consistently for a few weeks, then look at which cadence and which days actually earn reach and comments for you specifically. If you want a clear-eyed way to read those signals, our guide to the social media metrics to track shows you which numbers mean something and which are just noise dressed up as progress. Let your data pick your frequency — not a stranger on the internet, me included.

What should you actually post to get followers?

This is where most people freeze, so let me make it simple. Followable content almost always does one of three things: it teaches something useful, it shares a genuine point of view, or it tells a small, human story. That’s it. If a post isn’t doing at least one of those, it’s probably wallpaper. Here are the formats I reach for again and again.

• The one-lesson post. Teach a single, specific thing you know that your audience doesn’t. “Here’s the exact email I send to unresponsive clients.” Specific and useful beats broad and vague every time.
• The contrarian take. Respectfully disagree with a common piece of advice in your field and explain why. A real opinion, stated kindly, is magnetic — it gives people something to react to.
• The story with a point. A short, honest story from your work — a mistake, a turning point, a lesson learned the hard way — with the takeaway spelled out at the end. Vulnerability plus a lesson travels far here.
• The behind-the-scenes. Show how you actually do the work. Process, tools, a peek at your day. People follow the human behind the expertise, not just the expertise.
• The useful list or framework. Package what you know into a numbered list or a simple named framework people can save and reuse. Saveable content gets shared, and shares put you in front of new people.

A couple of craft notes that consistently help. Write a first line that earns the second — LinkedIn hides the rest of your post behind a “see more,” so your opening line has one job: make the click irresistible. Use short paragraphs and white space so it’s skimmable on a phone. And end most posts with a genuine question, because comments are the currency that gets your post shown to more people.

Why commenting might grow your following faster than posting

Here’s the tactic I wish someone had shouted at me years ago: comment more than you post. When you leave a thoughtful, substantive comment on a post from someone with an audience you’d love to reach, everyone reading that thread sees your name and your take. Some of them get curious, click your profile, and — if you’ve done the foundation work above — follow you. You’re borrowing someone else’s audience, generously and legitimately.

The key word is substantive. “Great post!” does nothing. A comment that adds a real idea, a counterpoint, or a specific example is a mini-post of its own. Pick five to ten people in your space whose audience overlaps with yours, and show up in their comments consistently. Do this for a few weeks and watch where a surprising number of your new followers come from. It’s slower than it sounds and faster than you’d think — and it costs you nothing but attention.

Personal profile vs. company page: which grows faster?

Let’s clear up a big one. On LinkedIn, personal profiles almost always grow faster than company pages, and it’s not close. People connect with people. A face and a voice earn trust and reach that a logo simply struggles to match. This isn’t a knock on company pages — it’s a strategy insight you should build around.

So the smartest move is to stop treating them as rivals and start treating them as a team. Your personal profile is the engine; your company page is the home base. Here’s how each one grows, side by side.

How do you actually grow a personal profile’s following?

Let’s get concrete about the personal side, because it’s your fastest lane.

Turn connections into followers on purpose

Every connection is also a follower by default, so growing a relevant network directly grows your reach. Send connection requests to people in your industry with a short, human note — no pitch, just a genuine reason you’d like to connect. Accept the relevant ones who reach out. A network built on real overlap will actually engage with your posts, which is what makes them travel.

Show up where your people already gather

Follow relevant hashtags, join a couple of active groups, and spend time in the comment sections where your audience hangs out. The goal isn’t to broadcast at them — it’s to become a familiar, helpful face. Familiarity is the quiet engine of follows.

Make following you frictionless

Switch on “Creator mode” style features so a “Follow” button is prominent on your profile, and add your LinkedIn to your email signature, your website, and your other platforms. If you want people to follow you, make the invitation impossible to miss.

Reply to every early comment

When someone comments on your post, reply thoughtfully — quickly, if you can. It’s polite, it deepens the relationship, and each reply is another comment on your post, which helps it reach more people. Those early conversations are where a lot of follows are born.

How do you grow a company page’s following?

Company pages are a slower burn, but they’re a genuine asset — a credible home you can point prospects, partners and press toward. Here’s how to build the following without pulling your hair out.

Make your team your growth channel

Your employees’ combined networks dwarf your page’s follower count, especially early on. When the page posts something worth sharing, warmly invite your team to reshare it to their own profiles. That’s not just extra reach — it’s trusted reach, because it arrives through a real person their network already knows. This is the single most powerful lever a company page has, and it costs nothing.

Invite the right people, and complete the page

LinkedIn lets admins invite their connections to follow the page, usually with a credit-based limit — so spend those invites on genuinely relevant people, not everyone you’ve ever met. And make sure the page is fully built out first: a complete, keyword-aware page reads as legitimate and converts far more of the visitors your invites and posts send its way. If you’re still setting yours up, it’s worth doing properly from the start.

Post like a helpful brand, not a billboard

Company pages win with a mix of value and personality: useful resources, customer wins told as stories, a peek at your culture and the humans behind the work, and the occasional genuinely helpful tip. Keep the pure sales posts rare. Give first, consistently, and the follows follow.

Cross-promote everywhere you already have attention

Add a “Follow us on LinkedIn” link to your website footer, your newsletter, and your email signatures. Feature the page in employee onboarding. You already have audiences elsewhere — point a few of them here.

Here’s where a scheduler quietly changes everything. Growing both a profile and a page means a lot of posts, and doing that live every morning is how good intentions die by Wednesday. Instead, write a batch of posts in one calm session and let them publish on a schedule. Our walkthrough on how to schedule social media posts lays out that exact workflow, and it’s the difference between growth that depends on your memory and growth that runs on autopilot.

A simple weekly system you can actually keep

Tactics are nice, but a following is built by a rhythm. So here’s a lightweight weekly system — maybe two to three hours total — that turns all of the above into a habit. Adjust the numbers to your life; the shape is what matters.

• Sunday (about 60–90 min): batch your posts. Draft your two-to-four posts for the week using the formats above. Schedule them so the week runs itself. Write a strong first line for each while you’re in the zone.
• Daily (about 10–15 min): comment with intention. Leave three to five substantive comments on posts from people whose audience you’d love to reach. This is your discovery engine — protect this habit above all others.
• Daily (about 5 min): tend your own garden. Reply to comments on your recent posts. Every reply strengthens a relationship and extends the post’s reach.
• Weekly (about 15 min): send a few real connection requests. Reach out to relevant people with a short, human note. No pitch.
• Monthly (about 30 min): look at what worked. Review which posts earned reach, comments and profile visits. Do more of that. Quietly retire what fell flat.

That’s it. Notice that the biggest daily commitment is commenting, not posting — because that’s where discovery actually lives. Notice too that measuring is baked in, because guessing is exhausting and data is kind.

Common mistakes that quietly stall your growth

• A vague headline. “Job title at company” tells visitors nothing about why to follow. Lead with who you help.
• Posting into a void. If you never comment on anyone else’s work, almost no one discovers you. Discovery is a two-way street.
• Only selling. A feed of pitches teaches people to scroll past you. Give value first, consistently, and earn the right to ask.
• Chasing a magic frequency. There’s no universal perfect number. Pick a pace you can sustain and let your own data refine it.
• The heroic burst. Ten posts in a week, then two months of silence, resets your momentum every time. Slow and steady genuinely wins here.
• Neglecting the profile before driving traffic to it. If your profile isn’t ready, every click you earn bounces. Fix the foundation first.

Does this work on other platforms too?

Beautifully, yes — the principles travel even when the tactics change. Get seen, spark curiosity, reward the click, earn the follow: that chain holds on nearly every network, though what “getting seen” looks like differs from one to the next. If you manage more than LinkedIn, our companion guide on how to grow on Instagram shows how the same instincts adapt to a very visual, very different platform. And when you’re ready to run all of this as one calm operation rather than a scramble, our pillar guide to social media management tips ties every channel together into a system you can actually sustain without burning out.

Be a little patient with yourself

Here’s the honest part, friend to friend: a LinkedIn following is a slow burn, not a slot machine. The first few weeks can feel like performing to an empty room, and that’s completely normal — you’re building a foundation, and foundations don’t sparkle, they hold things up. The people who win on LinkedIn aren’t the ones with the flashiest launch; they’re the ones still showing up in month six with the same steady, helpful voice. So if your early numbers feel small, please don’t read that as failure. Keep posting with a point of view, keep commenting generously, keep learning from what lands, and let the compounding do its quiet work. The following you build patiently now is the one that’s genuinely paying off a year from today. You’ve got this.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to grow a LinkedIn following?

It’s a gradual build, not an overnight jump. Most people see steady momentum after a few months of consistent posting and commenting, as their content compounds and their name becomes familiar. The exact pace depends on your niche, your consistency and how generously you engage with others, so track your own growth over time rather than comparing yourself to anyone else’s highlight reel.

Should I focus on my personal profile or my company page?

If you have to choose, start with your personal profile — people connect with people, and personal profiles generally grow faster and earn more reach. The best approach is to use both together: your personal profile builds your voice and relationships, then powers your company page through your posts and your team’s reshares. Treat them as teammates, not rivals.

Do hashtags help you get more followers on LinkedIn?

Hashtags can help the right people discover your content, but they’re a supporting player, not the main act. A few relevant, specific hashtags are more useful than a long pile of broad ones. Far more important than hashtags are a strong opening line, genuinely useful content, and consistent engagement in other people’s comments, which is where most discovery actually happens.

Is commenting really more effective than posting?

For getting discovered, commenting is often just as powerful, sometimes more so, especially early on. A thoughtful comment on a post with a large audience puts your name in front of exactly the people you want to reach, and some of them will click through and follow you. The strongest approach combines both: post consistently so your profile is worth following, then comment generously so people find it.

Can I schedule LinkedIn posts to stay consistent?

Yes, and it’s one of the best ways to keep the consistency that growth depends on. You can batch your posts in advance and let them publish automatically, so momentum never rides on whether you remembered to log in. A tool like SocialBlaze lets you schedule and auto-publish LinkedIn posts alongside your other networks and review the analytics in one place, which makes staying consistent far easier.