# How to Get Free LinkedIn Followers: Four Ways and How the Feed Reacts to Each > Four ways to get free LinkedIn followers, ranked: posts people want, your circle, paid followers and a pod of the right people, and how the feed treats each. Source: https://linkedinlikes.com/get-free-linkedin-followers ยท Updated: 2026-11-12 ## Key takeaways - Followers come from four sources: posts people want, your own circle, paid followers and a pod; posts are the strongest and slowest. - Every accepted connection also follows you, so your circle is the first audience of every post. - AuthoredUp found readers who save a post are 130% more likely to follow its author. - Van der Blom's 2025 data shows follower growth down 59%, which makes the first hour from your circle matter more. - Paid followers don't read or react, and LinkedIn removes such accounts in the millions every half-year. To get free LinkedIn followers, publish posts on one narrow topic that people want to read, ask the people who already know you to follow and comment in each post's first hour, and widen that first hour with a group of people from your field. Paid followers are the fourth option and the weakest, because they never read anything. If you are asking how to get more followers on LinkedIn without paying, the answer is the same for a personal profile and a company page: followers come from readers who see a post through someone else's activity, like it and press Follow. Below is each of the four ways, step by step, with what the feed does with it, taken from practitioner datasets and LinkedIn's own engineering posts. ## How do the four ways compare? Each follower you will ever get arrives by one of four routes. The fourth one, a pod, gets the most argument. LinkedIn officially opposes pods and most articles call them dead, yet nearly everything LinkedIn describes going after is automation, and in our experience a pod of the right people is, after good posts, the one thing that lifts reach reliably. Posts are the most effective way and also the hardest, because finding your topic and format can take years. A pod gives the best return on effort. | Way | What it brings | What the feed does | Our verdict | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Posts your audience wants | Followers who picked you for a topic and keep reading | Rewards comments and reading time; reach grows with each strong post | Strongest and hardest: the right topic and format can take years | | 2. Your own circle | A quick start and real first-hour comments on every post | Early conversation from real people carries a post past your network | The best way to speed up way 1 | | 3. Paid followers | A larger number on your profile | Accounts that never react weigh down every post you publish | The weakest; skip it | | 4. A pod of the right people | People from your field acting on each post in its first hour | Early, relevant activity takes each post to new readers who may follow | The best balance of effort and result | ## Way 1: How do you get LinkedIn followers with your posts? A LinkedIn follower is someone who wants to see your next post. Most never meet you. They spot one of your posts because a person in their network reacted to it, read it through, open your profile and press Follow. Everything in this section is about making that chain happen more often. ### Growing followers with posts, step by step 1. **Choose the one subject you want to be followed for.** Narrow it down: "cold email for B2B SaaS" or "hiring your first 10 engineers" instead of "marketing." Put it in your headline, which appears with every post and comment you write. 2. **Make Follow the main button on your profile.** Visitors arriving from a post should see Follow first, with Connect behind it. Our [LinkedIn follow-for-follow guide](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-follow-for-follow) shows the setting. 3. **List 20 post ideas before you begin.** Use the questions clients, colleagues and recruiters really ask you. A list removes the daily "what do I post" problem that usually breaks a rhythm. 4. **Write the first two lines last.** The feed hides the rest of the text behind a "see more" link, so those lines decide whether anyone reads on. Put the result or the tension there and leave the background for later. 5. **Give each idea its own format.** A step-by-step how-to works as a document (a PDF carousel), a story as plain text, a before-and-after as an image. Don't squeeze every idea into one shape. 6. **Post on a schedule you can keep for three months.** Two or three posts a week, at times your audience is working. Steady posting beats volume, because each post teaches the feed who reacts to you. 7. **Stay for the first hour.** Reply to every comment with something that adds to it. A real conversation under the post counts for more than any number of likes. 8. **Comment on larger accounts in your niche between posts.** A sharp comment under a widely read post puts your name and headline in front of people who haven't met you. 9. **See which posts brought followers.** LinkedIn post analytics now show profile views and followers gained for each post. Make more posts like the ones that converted, and fewer like the ones that only collected likes. ### How does the LinkedIn algorithm react to your posts? LinkedIn doesn't publish its ranking weights, so the notes below come from people who measure hundreds of thousands of posts. Where something is experience and not a measured figure, we say so. - **Each post starts with a small audience.** The feed first shows a new post to part of your network and widens it only if those readers respond ([Metricool](https://metricool.com/linkedin-algorithm/), [Hootsuite](https://blog.hootsuite.com/linkedin-algorithm/)). LinkedIn's engineers describe predicting reach from how quickly likes, comments and shares come in ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2017](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/strategies-for-keeping-the-linkedin-feed-relevant)). The size of that first slice has never been published; "test, then widen" is observed practice. - **Reading time counts for more than the like button.** Posts people scroll past quickly are logged as "skips" and ranked lower ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2020](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/understanding-feed-dwell-time)). The 2026 feed model predicts clicks, skips and long reads next to likes and comments ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2026](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/engineering-the-next-generation-of-linkedins-feed)). Day to day, an opening that earns the "see more" click and a body people finish is what moves a post. - **Comments beat likes, and saves get overlooked.** Practitioners agree on the direction and disagree on the size. Richard van der Blom's 2024 Algorithm InSights report (1.5M posts) put one comment at 15 likes and one save at 8 ([Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/)). AuthoredUp's study of 621,833 posts valued a comment at about 2 likes and a save at about 5 ([AuthoredUp](https://authoredup.com/blog/linkedin-algorithm)). - **A save is the nearest thing to a follow signal.** In the same AuthoredUp data, a reader who saves a post is 130% more likely to follow its author ([AuthoredUp](https://authoredup.com/blog/linkedin-algorithm)). - **Links in a post usually cost reach.** Van der Blom measured posts with an outside link at 0.61 of median reach on personal profiles in 2024 ([Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/)), and his 2026 report puts a single link in the body at minus 18.8% ([relay](https://melaniegoodmanlinkedinconsultant.substack.com/p/linkedin-algorithm-2026-reach-topic-authority)). Ordinal's data finds the penalty falls mostly on company pages, with almost none on personal profiles ([Ordinal](https://www.tryordinal.com/blog/linkedin-link-penatly-study)). The sources disagree, so if a link matters to you, test it on your own account. - **A post lives for two days.** Across 673,658 posts, half of all impressions came within 48 hours, and around 40% of interactions on personal profiles happened on day one ([Metricool](https://newsletter.metricool.com/p/5-linkedin-stats-in-2026-you-probably-didn-t-see-coming)). - **Posting alone brings fewer followers than before.** Van der Blom's 2025 data shows views down about 50% and follower growth down 59% ([WrittenlyHub](https://www.writtenlyhub.com/news/linkedin-engagement-down-50-algorithm-insights-report-2025)), and his October 2025 update shows follower growth down 42% since February 2025 ([Right Angle](https://rightangleagency.com/latest-linkedin-algorithm-report/)). That is why way 2 matters more now. ### What works for posts - Post two or three times a week. Van der Blom's data names two to three a week as the sweet spot and more than one a day as a loss ([Right Angle](https://rightangleagency.com/latest-linkedin-algorithm-report/), [Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/)); Buffer's analysis of more than 2M posts found two to five a week raises impressions ([Buffer](https://buffer.com/resources/linkedin-algorithm/)). - Reply to every comment, and do it early. Buffer measured a 30% lift in interactions from replying ([Buffer](https://buffer.com/resources/linkedin-algorithm/)), and van der Blom advises answering within the first hour ([Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/)). - Publish things people want to keep, such as checklists, templates, frameworks and before-and-after numbers. Saves lead to follows. - Use documents for how-tos. Socialinsider's 2026 benchmark of 2.45M company page posts found native documents averaged a 7.00% engagement rate, against 3.25% for link posts ([Socialinsider](https://www.socialinsider.io/social-media-benchmarks/linkedin)). - Comment on other people's posts every week. According to LinkedIn's own creator account, leaving comments once a week can bring three times the profile views ([Lindsey Gamble](https://www.lindseygamble.com/blog/linkedin-shares-commenting-can-triple-profile-views)), and van der Blom's 2025 data ties each comment you leave to 80% more visibility for your next post ([relay](https://thelinkedinsecrets.com/p/ls-47-linkedin-algorithm-insights)). - Turn a strong series into a newsletter. When the first edition goes out, LinkedIn invites your connections and followers to subscribe ([LinkedIn Help](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/97507)). ### What to avoid in your posts - Editing a post in its first minutes. Van der Blom's 2024 data puts an edit at roughly 15% of reach ([Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/)), so proofread before you press Post. - Posting more than once a day. The second post fights the first for the same readers. - "Like if you agree" and other requests for reactions. LinkedIn said in 2022 that it stops showing posts made only to collect reactions ([Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-updates-feed-algorithm-to-downrank-engagement-baiting-posts-and-po/623313/)). - An outside link in a post whose only job is winning followers. Move it to a comment or drop it. - Judging a post after one hour. Half of impressions arrive within 48 hours ([Metricool](https://newsletter.metricool.com/p/5-linkedin-stats-in-2026-you-probably-didn-t-see-coming)), so give it two days before deciding it failed. ### Common mistakes with posts - Writing about everything. The feed ranks posts on what each reader has interacted with before ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2026](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/engineering-the-next-generation-of-linkedins-feed)). People who followed you for one subject scroll past the others, and quick scroll-pasts count against a post. This is our reading of the model, not a published rule. - Chasing likes. A like is the cheapest signal; comments and saves move a post and turn readers into followers. - Publishing and walking away. The first replies under a post are yours to start. - Tracking impressions instead of followers per post. LinkedIn now shows followers gained for each post, and that is the figure to grow. - Quitting after three weeks. Most people stop before they have enough posts to learn which subject their audience follows them for. ## Way 2: How do you get followers from people you already know? Your circle is everyone who knows you already: current and former colleagues, clients, classmates, friends in your industry, people from events. They are the fastest followers you will get, and they are also the first readers of every post you publish. Most people overlook that second part. ### Asking your circle, step by step 1. **Write the list.** Go through phone contacts, email, past employers and clients, and mark the people who would care about the subject you want to be followed for. 2. **Send a connection request with a one-line note.** Every accepted connection on LinkedIn also follows you, so each yes adds a follower who knows your name. 3. **Ask the others to follow, one by one.** For people who won't connect, send a short personal message saying what you will post about and why it helps them. A personal request works; a mass message doesn't. 4. **Show your profile where people already meet you.** Email signature, company site, slide decks, newsletter footer, a QR code on your event badge. 5. **Form a small first-hour group.** Five to fifteen people interested in your subject who agree to hear when a post goes live. Ask them for a real comment with an opinion or a question, never just a like. 6. **Rotate by subject.** Tag different members for different topics, so the people commenting are the ones who would care anyway. 7. **Return the favour.** Comment on their posts in their first hour. A circle where help flows one way stops answering after a month. ### Why do agency clients' posts keep showing up in your feed? Every agency knows this routine. The agency writes a post for a client, say a B2B founder, and it goes live at 9:00. At 9:01 a note goes out in the agency's team chat, the client's company chat and a couple of partner groups: "The post is up, please add your take." An hour later thirty people have commented, each with a network of their own: salespeople from the client's team, strategists from the agency, two partners and an old colleague. The feed is designed to reward exactly that. LinkedIn's engineers wrote that the first few reactions to a post matter most ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2018](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/member-customer-experience/linkedin-feed-with-creator-side-optimization)), that reach is predicted from the speed of likes, comments and shares ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2017](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/strategies-for-keeping-the-linkedin-feed-relevant)), and that the first members to interact with a post are an early sign of whether it will spread widely ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2023](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/trust-and-safety/viral-spam-content-detection-at-linkedin)). Thirty early comments from people with their own networks meet every one of those conditions, so the post travels into each commenter's network. That is why it appears in your feed under "Anna commented on this" although you never followed the founder, and why the same names keep turning up under it. Employee advocacy runs on the same logic. LinkedIn's official guide says employees' networks are together about 10 times larger than a company's follower base, and that posts employees share get about twice the click-through rate ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/business/marketing/blog/brand/introducing-the-official-guide-to-employee-advocacy)). Company pages even have a "Notify employees" button for posts that matter ([LinkedIn Help](https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a549372)), which makes this the main free route to LinkedIn company page followers. Our page on [free company page followers](https://linkedinlikes.com/get-free-linkedin-company-page-followers) covers that case in full. Practitioners treat this first hour as the window that counts. Van der Blom's 2024 report says to answer comments within the first hour and that early reactions shape how a post is treated ([Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/)); some practitioners stretch it to 90 minutes ([Mercer MacKay](https://mercermackay.com/thinking/blog/a-leaders-guide-to-the-linkedin-algorithm-what-the-data-says/)). No official window exists, so read "one hour" as a pattern people have seen, with nothing from LinkedIn to confirm it. ### How does the algorithm react to your circle? - **Each accepted connection is a follower.** Connecting makes both people follow each other automatically ([LinkedIn Help](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a519786/follow-or-unfollow-member-articles)), so your circle is also the first audience each post reaches. - **Early, real conversation is the strongest push available.** As described above, first reactions count most, and comments from people with their own networks carry the post into those networks, which is where new followers come from. - **Identical activity from the same group gets discounted.** Feed reach is limited for posts LinkedIn reads as artificially inflated, and the company has said it wants engagement pods to be "entirely ineffective" ([Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-vows-to-take-action-against-engagement-pods-fake-engagement/804970/)) ([LinkedIn News, 2026](https://news.linkedin.com/2026/authentic-content-and-conversations)); excessive or automated comments get their own visibility cut ([LinkedIn Help](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a524166)). Van der Blom describes posts that gather 20 to 30 comments in the first five minutes, mostly written by AI ([Creator Science](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/richard-van-der-blom-2/)). The feed now discounts that pattern. People from your field writing what they think, at the moment they actually read the post, are a different signal. - **Commenting for others pays off for you.** In van der Blom's 2025 data, every comment you write elsewhere goes with 80% more visibility on the next thing you publish ([relay](https://thelinkedinsecrets.com/p/ls-47-linkedin-algorithm-insights)), so commenting in your circle's first hour pays you back twice. ### What works with your circle - Ask for a comment with an opinion, an example or a question, never for a like. - Let people comment when they really read the post, spread over the first hour or two instead of all in minute one. - Choose people from your subject area, because their networks are the audience you want followers from. - Reply to every comment and keep the thread going; replies were measured to lift interactions by about 30% ([Buffer](https://buffer.com/resources/linkedin-algorithm/)). - For a company, use "Notify employees" on the posts that matter; an admin can send it once a day ([LinkedIn Help](https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a549372)). - Give back by showing up in your circle's first hour as often as they show up in yours. ### What to avoid with your circle - Copy-pasted or AI-written comments and "Great post." They add nothing to the thread and are the first thing the feed discounts. - The same ten people under every post, always at the same minute. That is the pod pattern LinkedIn says it limits. - Any kind of automation for reactions or comments. This way only works because the people are real and the words are theirs. - Tagging a dozen people who have nothing to do with the post just to notify them. It annoys the circle you rely on. - Mass messages saying "please like my post." A personal note to a few people works; a broadcast uses up goodwill. ### Common mistakes with your circle - Asking people to follow and then giving them nothing worth reading. Followers who never see a useful post stop opening yours. - A circle outside your subject. Friends from another industry can start the first hour, but the post then spreads into networks that won't follow you for this topic. - Calling on the circle only for launches. The feed learns who reacts to you from every post, not only the big ones. - Everyone in the first two minutes and then silence. A real conversation runs through the first hour or two. - Leaving comments unanswered. Thirty comments with no answer from the author look like a pod instead of a discussion. ## Way 3: Do paid followers help on LinkedIn? Paying for followers is the quickest way to change the number on your profile and the slowest way to change anything else. LinkedInLikes doesn't sell followers, and this section is here because people ask about it. ### What usually happens A seller takes your profile URL and a fee, and accounts start following you over the next hours or days. The number on your profile goes up. On your next post the reach stays the same or falls, because none of those accounts read anything. ### How does the algorithm react to paid followers? - **A follower only helps if they react.** New posts go to part of your network first and widen when those readers respond ([Metricool](https://metricool.com/linkedin-algorithm/)), and the algorithm doesn't show your posts to all your followers ([Hootsuite](https://blog.hootsuite.com/linkedin-algorithm/)). Accounts that never read or react add nothing to that first audience. - **Your rate falls as inactive followers pile up.** Across 372,812 posts, the median engagement rate was 2.56% for accounts with up to 1,000 followers and 1.53% for accounts above 100,000. AuthoredUp sums it up as 500 active connections beating 10,000 dormant ones ([AuthoredUp](https://authoredup.com/blog/linkedin-metrics-to-track)). Paid followers are dormant from day one. - **The number doesn't last.** LinkedIn reports that from July to December 2025 it proactively restricted 24.4 million fake accounts and caught 99.7% of them before any member reported them ([LinkedIn Community Report](https://about.linkedin.com/transparency/community-report)). When an account is removed, its follow disappears too. - **Ranking ignores the follower count.** Everything LinkedIn's engineers describe, from velocity and first reactions to reading time and skips, is about what readers do with a post ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2020](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/understanding-feed-dwell-time), [LinkedIn Engineering, 2026](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/engineering-the-next-generation-of-linkedins-feed)), never about how many followers the author has. ### If you want to spend money anyway - Pay LinkedIn for reach: members can use Boost on a post that already does well organically, and real people in the roles you choose see it and decide whether to follow ([LinkedIn Help](https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a6584635)). Companies can sponsor employees' posts as Thought Leader Ads ([LinkedIn](https://business.linkedin.com/advertise/ads/sponsored-content/thought-leader-ads)). Our comparison of [LinkedIn Boost and LinkedInLikes](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-boost-vs-linkedinlikes) sets the two side by side. - Pay for skills: an editor for your hooks or a designer for document posts improves every post after that. - Pay for rooms: events and meetups grow the circle you rely on in way 2. ### What to avoid if you already have paid followers - Inflating the count to look established before a launch. Visitors compare followers with the reactions under your posts, and 10,000 followers with three likes reads worse than 800 followers with forty comments. - Judging your posts by rate afterwards. The follower count in the denominator is inflated, so every post looks weaker than it really is. - Paying for reactions on posts too. It is the same dead weight, moved to the place the feed actually measures. ### Common mistakes with paid followers - Believing social proof turns into reach. The feed ranks what readers do, and the profile number plays no part. - Treating the count as the goal. The goal is people who read, comment and save; the count follows them. - Expecting a shortcut to ways 1 and 2. It is a detour: you still need posts and a circle afterwards, and your numbers are now harder to read. ## Way 4: How do you run a pod that brings followers? Nearly every article on pods says the same: pods are dead, LinkedIn catches them, and reactions from the wrong people teach the feed to show your posts to the wrong audience ([ContentIn](https://contentin.io/glossary/engagement-pod/)). The last part is true, and it explains why the usual pod fails. Strip away the label and a pod is a set of people who respond to one another's posts soon after publishing. Staffed with the right members, it repeats the work your circle does in way 2 for every post, at a larger scale than your own contacts can reach. After posting itself, it is the one method we have seen move follower numbers reliably, and it takes weeks to set up instead of years. ### Running a pod for followers, step by step 1. **Decide whose follows you want.** Write down the roles and industries you want reading you. Pod members should be those people, or people whose audience is made of them. 2. **Build the pod from three sources.** Start with colleagues and peers in your field, add a niche group, then fill gaps with a service. The table below lists where to find each. 3. **Publish, then tell the pod within minutes.** Send one message with the link. No script and no "please like." 4. **Collect as many real actions as possible in the first hour.** People read to the end and react, and those with something to say comment in their own words. The more of this happens early, the further the post goes. 5. **Answer each comment while the hour is still running.** Every reply is another action under the post and keeps the thread alive. 6. **Prepare your profile for strangers.** Followers come from people outside the pod who see the post through a member's activity and open your profile. Put the Follow button first and use a headline that says what you post about. 7. **Compare followers per post with and without the pod.** Post analytics show followers gained per post. If pod posts don't convert, the pod is the wrong audience. ### Where can you find the right people, groups and services? Begin with people, add groups and use a service for the gaps. The closer a member's own audience is to yours, the more followers each post brings. | Source | What you get there | | --- | --- | | Friends and colleagues in your field | The best first members, because their networks resemble the audience you want | | Pod groups: [LinkedIn Engagement Pod & Group](https://t.me/linkedin_engagement_pod) (Telegram), [LinkedIn For Breakfast](https://www.skool.com/linkedin-for-breakfast) (Skool), [r/linkedintips](https://www.reddit.com/r/linkedintips/) (Reddit); more in our [list of LinkedIn pods](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-engagement-pods) | Good for volume, though a pod mixing every industry sends your post to people who won't follow | | [LinkedInLikes](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin/follow) | A free community: you choose follows for your profile or reactions and comments for a post, and members act by hand from their own accounts | | [Podawaa](https://podawaa.com) | Built around likes and comments on posts; followers come from the extra reach | | [Linkboost](https://linkboost.co) | Also likes and comments; edit the AI-drafted comments before they go out | | [Lempod](https://lempod.com) | Automatic likes and comments, the thing LinkedIn says it targets; we would not use them | ### How does the algorithm react to a pod built for followers? - **LinkedIn's official position.** LinkedIn says it aims to make engagement pods "entirely ineffective" and that it limits the reach of posts it flags as artificially inflated ([Social Media Today, Nov 2025](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-vows-to-take-action-against-engagement-pods-fake-engagement/804970/)). - **What LinkedIn describes catching.** Third-party tools such as browser extensions that comment on many posts at once ([Social Media Today, Nov 2025](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-vows-to-take-action-against-engagement-pods-fake-engagement/804970/)), comments posted by scripts with no human review ([Social Media Today, Feb 2026](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-outlines-more-measures-to-combat-engagement-pods/812290/)) and suspicious activity patterns ([LinkedIn News, 2026](https://news.linkedin.com/2026/authentic-content-and-conversations)). LinkedIn has also said pods are hard to fight because they are organized outside the app ([Social Media Today, Feb 2026](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-outlines-more-measures-to-combat-engagement-pods/812290/)). - **Our reading.** When people from your field read a post and reply in their own words during the first hour, the feed receives early reactions from relevant members, which is what it was designed to reward ([LinkedIn Engineering, 2018](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/member-customer-experience/linkedin-feed-with-creator-side-optimization), [2017](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/strategies-for-keeping-the-linkedin-feed-relevant)). This is our interpretation of published engineering posts, not a statement from LinkedIn. - **Followers come from members' networks.** Reactions and comments can appear in the reacting person's network feed ([Fortune](https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/commenting-for-reach-responses-linkedin-posts-pushback-jobs-layoffs-even-emoji-better/)). Strangers find your post in those feeds, so the value of a pod depends on whose networks its members bring with them. - **The wrong pod costs you.** A pod drawn from every industry shows your post to people who will never follow and teaches the feed the wrong audience ([ContentIn](https://contentin.io/glossary/engagement-pod/)). ### What works in a follower pod - Members from your field or your target audience and nobody else. - Rotation, so each post goes to the members closest to its subject. - Real comments in members' own words, of different lengths, some with questions. - Actions spread across the first hour instead of all in the first minute. - Giving back with the same care on members' posts. ### What to avoid in a follower pod - Tools that like and comment from your account automatically. LinkedIn says it targets exactly these and can restrict accounts that keep using them ([Social Media Today, Feb 2026](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-outlines-more-measures-to-combat-engagement-pods/812290/)). - Huge pods of hundreds of people from every industry. - "Great post" comments, which give nothing to the reader or the feed. - Swapping follows inside the pod in place of real reactions; members are not your readers. ### Common pod mistakes - Joining the first pod you find and blaming LinkedIn when nobody follows. - Using the pod only for likes. - Dropping the work on posts because the pod "handles reach." - Never checking which pod posts actually brought followers. ## What should you check in the first hour after posting? Run through this list the next time you publish. It combines ways 1 and 2, where most follower growth comes from. - The first two lines state the result or the tension, with the background later. - There is no outside link in the body, or you have tested what it costs you. - The format suits the idea: a document for a how-to, text for a story. - Your first-hour group of five to fifteen people has the link. - Your calendar is clear for an hour of replies. - Each comment has an answer from you that moves the thread on. - Earlier today you commented with care on a few posts by others. - The pod members from your field have the link and the first hour. - Two days later, you looked up the followers this post brought in. ## What if your circle is too small to start? If you are new to LinkedIn or your contacts work outside your subject, you can add your profile to [LinkedInLikes](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin/follow). You paste your profile link, set the points per follow and how many follows you want, and members who choose the task follow you by hand from their own accounts. New accounts get 100 starter points after confirming their email, and you get more by following, liking or commenting on other members' profiles and posts. We never ask for your LinkedIn password or a browser extension, and we remove accounts we detect as automated. Followers from a community still need posts worth reading, so pair this with way 1. For the step-by-step version, see [how to get free LinkedIn followers](https://linkedinlikes.com/how-to-get-free-linkedin-followers), and [create a free account](https://linkedinlikes.com/signup) when you are ready. ## Where do the algorithm notes come from? The algorithm notes on this page come from three kinds of sources, labelled so you can judge their weight. **Measured by practitioners on datasets of posts:** - Richard van der Blom, Algorithm InSights 2024, 1.5M posts: [Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/) - Van der Blom, 2025 report and the October 2025 update: [WrittenlyHub](https://www.writtenlyhub.com/news/linkedin-engagement-down-50-algorithm-insights-report-2025), [Right Angle](https://rightangleagency.com/latest-linkedin-algorithm-report/), [The LinkedIn Secrets](https://thelinkedinsecrets.com/p/ls-47-linkedin-algorithm-insights) - Van der Blom, 2026 report on the link penalty: [Melanie Goodman](https://melaniegoodmanlinkedinconsultant.substack.com/p/linkedin-algorithm-2026-reach-topic-authority) - AuthoredUp, 621,833 posts: [AuthoredUp algorithm study](https://authoredup.com/blog/linkedin-algorithm); 372,812 posts: [AuthoredUp metrics study](https://authoredup.com/blog/linkedin-metrics-to-track) - Buffer, more than 2M posts: [Buffer](https://buffer.com/resources/linkedin-algorithm/) - Metricool, 673,658 posts: [Metricool](https://newsletter.metricool.com/p/5-linkedin-stats-in-2026-you-probably-didn-t-see-coming) - Socialinsider, 2.45M company page posts: [Socialinsider](https://www.socialinsider.io/social-media-benchmarks/linkedin) - Ordinal, link penalty data: [Ordinal](https://www.tryordinal.com/blog/linkedin-link-penatly-study) **Observed by practitioners from experience, without a dataset:** - First hour and first 90 minutes: [Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-tips-algorithm-performance/707201/), [Mercer MacKay](https://mercermackay.com/thinking/blog/a-leaders-guide-to-the-linkedin-algorithm-what-the-data-says/) - AI comments in the first minutes: [Creator Science podcast with Richard van der Blom](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/richard-van-der-blom-2/) - Showing a post to a small group first and widening it: [Metricool](https://metricool.com/linkedin-algorithm/), [Hootsuite](https://blog.hootsuite.com/linkedin-algorithm/) **Published by LinkedIn and its engineers, describing how things work:** - Feed relevance and velocity: [2017](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/strategies-for-keeping-the-linkedin-feed-relevant); first reactions: [2018](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/member-customer-experience/linkedin-feed-with-creator-side-optimization); reading time and skips: [2020](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/understanding-feed-dwell-time); early interactors: [2023](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/trust-and-safety/viral-spam-content-detection-at-linkedin); the 2026 feed: [2026](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/engineering-the-next-generation-of-linkedins-feed) - Pods and artificial activity: [Social Media Today](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-vows-to-take-action-against-engagement-pods-fake-engagement/804970/), [LinkedIn News](https://news.linkedin.com/2026/authentic-content-and-conversations) - Employee advocacy: [LinkedIn Marketing Blog](https://www.linkedin.com/business/marketing/blog/brand/introducing-the-official-guide-to-employee-advocacy) - Account removals: [LinkedIn Community Report](https://about.linkedin.com/transparency/community-report) **On pods:** - LinkedIn's stated position: [Social Media Today, Nov 2025](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-vows-to-take-action-against-engagement-pods-fake-engagement/804970/), [LinkedIn News, Mar 2026](https://news.linkedin.com/2026/authentic-content-and-conversations) - What LinkedIn describes detecting: [Social Media Today, Feb 2026](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-outlines-more-measures-to-combat-engagement-pods/812290/) - The usual "pods are dead" case: [ContentIn](https://contentin.io/glossary/engagement-pod/) - Pod groups and services: [Telegram pod](https://t.me/linkedin_engagement_pod), [Skool community](https://www.skool.com/linkedin-for-breakfast), [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/linkedintips/), [Podawaa](https://podawaa.com), [Linkboost](https://linkboost.co), [Lempod](https://lempod.com) LinkedIn publishes neither ranking weights nor time windows. Where practitioners disagree, as on the weight of a comment or the cost of a link, both figures are shown. Your next step: pick the one subject you want to be followed for and put it in your headline today. ## Frequently asked questions ### Do pods work for getting LinkedIn followers? A pod helps when its members come from your field, read the post and comment in their own words during the first hour. A pod of random industries or automated comments sends the post to the wrong people, and LinkedIn says it targets automation. ### What do LinkedIn followers give you? Followers are the first audience each post is shown to. Followers who read and react help a post reach their networks, which brings more followers; followers who never react add only a bigger number. ### Why do I keep seeing posts from people I don't follow? Because someone you are connected to commented on them, usually early. Comments carry a post into the commenter's network, and a post with real comments in its first hour gets shown to more people. Agencies use this on purpose by asking everyone they can reach to comment right after a client post goes live. ### How often should I post to grow LinkedIn followers? Two to three times a week. Van der Blom's data names that as the sweet spot and more than one post a day as a loss; Buffer found that two to five posts a week raise impressions. ### Should I put links in my LinkedIn posts? Avoid them in a post meant to win followers. Practitioner data mostly shows lower reach for posts with an outside link, though Ordinal finds the effect small on personal profiles. If you need the link, add it in a comment or test both versions. ### Is it harder to get LinkedIn followers than it used to be? Yes. Van der Blom's 2025 data shows follower growth down 59%, and his October 2025 update shows it down 42% since February 2025. Posting alone brings fewer followers than before, so the first-hour push from your circle matters more. ### How can a company page get more followers for free? Ask employees to follow and share, since their networks are about 10 times larger than a company's follower base, and use the "Notify employees" button on posts that matter. See [free LinkedIn company page followers](https://linkedinlikes.com/get-free-linkedin-company-page-followers).