Why You Should Max Out Your LinkedIn Connection Requests Every Week

Most People Underuse Their Connection Requests

Every week, LinkedIn gives you a budget of connection requests. Think of it like a spending allowance for growing your professional network. Most people use maybe 5% of it.

They'll connect with someone after a meeting. Maybe accept a few incoming requests. And that's it.

Meanwhile, every unused connection request is a wasted opportunity to put your content in front of one more relevant person. To add one more potential customer, partner, hire, or referral to your network.

Every Connection Is Distribution

Here's the thing most people don't internalize: your LinkedIn connections are your content distribution network.

When you post on LinkedIn, the algorithm first shows your post to a subset of your connections. If those people engage, it spreads further. If they don't, it dies.

So every new connection you add is another person who might see, like, or comment on your next post. More connections in your target audience means more reach to the people who matter.

This is why growing your connection count isn't vanity — it's infrastructure. You're building the distribution channel for every piece of content you'll ever publish on the platform.

Be Strategic About Who You Connect With

I'm not telling you to connect with everyone on the planet. That would actually hurt you. If you connect with thousands of random people, your content gets shown to people who don't care about your industry, they don't engage, and the algorithm decides your content isn't interesting.

Instead, be intentional. Every week, spend 15 to 20 minutes sending connection requests to people who fall into these categories:

• People in your industry — They'll engage with your content because it's relevant to them
• Potential customers or clients — Every connection is a free, ongoing touchpoint
• People at companies you want to work with — Whether for partnerships, sales, or future jobs
• People who are active posters — They're more likely to see and engage with your content
• People you've actually met — Conferences, meetings, webinars, whatever. Lock in the connection while they remember you

That's it. Five categories. If someone fits one of them, send the request.

Where to Find the Right People

You don't have to sit there guessing who to connect with. LinkedIn basically hands you a list.

Search by company. Pick 5 companies you want to build relationships with. Search for people at those companies with relevant titles. Connect with them.

Check "People Also Viewed." When you visit someone's profile, LinkedIn shows similar profiles on the side. These are almost always relevant connections.

Look at who's engaging with content you like. If someone commented something smart on a post in your industry, they're probably worth connecting with. Bonus: you already have context for a connection note.

Mine your event attendees. After a conference, webinar, or networking event, search for attendees and connect with all of them. You have a natural reason and they're likely to accept.

Review your email contacts. LinkedIn lets you sync your email contacts. You'll be surprised how many people you already know who you haven't connected with yet.

The Connection Note Question

People overthink this. Should you include a note? What should it say?

Here's my take: a short, specific note helps, but a generic note doesn't. And no note at all is totally fine.

Good note: "Hey Sarah — saw your comment on that post about B2B pricing. Really smart point about value metrics. Would love to connect."

Bad note: "Hi! I'd love to connect and explore potential synergies between our organizations."

That second one? People can smell the template from a mile away. If you can't write something specific, just send the request blank. It's better than sounding like a bot.

The Compound Effect

Here's where this gets interesting. If you send 100 connection requests a week and 40% accept, you're adding about 160 new connections per month. That's almost 2,000 new connections per year.

Now imagine you're posting 3 times a week. Every one of those 2,000 new connections is someone who might see your posts. Some of them will engage. That engagement pushes your content to second and third degree connections. Your reach compounds.

After six months of consistent connecting and posting, your LinkedIn looks completely different than it did when you started. Posts that used to get 50 views now get 500. DMs start coming in. People start recognizing your name at events.

This doesn't happen overnight. It's a weekly habit. But the math is on your side if you stick with it.

Don't Forget to Actually Post

Growing your connections without posting content is like building a stage and never performing. The connections are the audience. You need to give them something to engage with.

If you're growing your network, make sure you're posting at least 2 to 3 times a week. Even short posts — a quick observation, a lesson from your week, a question for your network — keep you visible and give your new connections a reason to pay attention.

Not sure what to post? Check out 100 LinkedIn post prompts for ideas, or read about how often you should actually be posting to find a cadence that works.

The Bottom Line

LinkedIn gives you a free, weekly budget to grow your professional network with exactly the people you want to reach. Most people leave 90% of that budget on the table.

Don't be most people. Set aside 15 minutes every week — Sunday night, Monday morning, whenever works — and send connection requests to relevant people. Combine that with consistent posting and you'll build a network that actually drives your career forward.

TeamPost makes the posting side easy so you can focus on building relationships. But the connecting part? That's on you. Go max out your requests this week.