4 Smart Ways to Follow People on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Business Intelligence, Ninja Tactics, and Guerilla strategies on how to follow people on LinkedIn to gather information. There are many reasons you may want to follow another person on LinkedIn. One way is to gain business intelligence for a sales meeting. A second way would be to find out what groups a business owner is in. Another is to gather information about a hiring manager for an interview.

The first way to follow people is to follow their companies on LinkedIn. You have always been able to follow companies. If the business is a target company, sign up to follow that company. Check the home page to see if there is a career page. If the company is hiring maybe they are expanding and in growth mode. The most important thing in following a company is that LinkedIn will show you all of your connections (1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree connections) that you may have within that company.

Tip: on the company page click on the number of followers for that company. The number is a hyperlink that will show you all of the followers of that company. Unfortunately you have to scroll through each and every one of them. Makes it difficult if there are 200,000 followers of a company.

The second way is to follow Influencers. Since influencers inception you have been able to follow their posts. Influencers on LinkedIn are from all occupations; executives, writers, entrepreneurs, artists, and industry experts or professionals. Follow influencers for your industry, gather business intelligence from their articles then share the articles or pass them on to your connections so you are seen as the SME or the go to person for industry news.

The third way is to follow Publishers on LinkedIn: with the new publishing feature you can now follow those whose articles you enjoy. LinkedIn in the past few month has let its users, approximately 25,000, publish on the platform. If you have publishing rights you will see a pencil on the right side of the update section on your home page. Eventually all members will be able to publish. LinkedIn is gradually rolling publishing out to everyone. But LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to follow them without connecting to them.

The fourth way is to follow others on LinkedIn even those you are not connected to. With this Guerrilla strategy you can follow anyone (the competition or a hiring manager) on LinkedIn by clicking on the drop down arrow on their profile. Just click on the “view recent activity” link.

The activity link will take you to the activity page where it gives you a yellow follow button at the top right corner of the page. Click on the yellow follow and you will receive any and all of their updates on your LinkedIn homepage.

Now you have the opportunity to follow just about anyone, 2nd, and 3rd degree connections. This feature that LinkedIn has rolled out, and LinkedIn hasn’t advertised it, is the ability to follow others even those you are not first degree connected to on LinkedIn.

BONUS number five is a Ninja tactic to follow group members on LinkedIn. You have always had the option of following people that you share a group with. LinkedIn just doesn’t tell anyone about this. Strategically following group members is useful when you’re looking to start conversations with candidates or prospective business partners. Like and comment on their updates, and interact and build business relationships. If someone in a group does NOT want to connect with you, as a group member, you have four choices: “follow connection”, see activity, send message, or connect. Just click on “follow connection.” You can then follow their updates (LinkedIn DOES NOT notify them) as long as you are both in the group.

You can use all of these features to gather business intelligence for sales, business development, recruiting, and especially for job search.

I’m always happy to connect on LinkedIn with people who PERSONALIZE their request. My email address is BruceBix49@gmail.com. If you find this information valuable please pass this on to others who need help.

I build practically perfect LinkedIn profiles and exemplary executive resumes. Contact me if you need help at or Email me at bruce@hobknobery.com