Reaching 500 connections on LinkedIn is a significant milestone for any LinkedIn user. With 500 connections, you gain access to new features and opportunities on the platform that allow you to expand your network and get the most out of LinkedIn.
In this article, we’ll explore what happens when you reach 500 LinkedIn connections, including:
- What new features become available
- How your profile and activity changes
- Tips to leverage your expanded network
Whether you’re close to hitting 500 connections or just curious about what benefits you can unlock with an expanded LinkedIn network, read on to learn what happens after 500.
What New Features Become Available at 500 Connections?
Once you reach 500 connections, LinkedIn unlocks several new features and opportunities. Here are some of the most notable:
Advanced LinkedIn Search
One of the biggest benefits of reaching 500 connections is gaining access to advanced search filters. With advanced search, you can use filters to narrow down your search results by criteria like location, company, job title, industry, skills, schools attended, and more.
Having these advanced search capabilities makes it much easier to find and connect with relevant professionals in your target industry or at companies you want to work for.
Who’s Viewed Your Profile
At 500 connections, you’ll be able to see the last 90 days of visitors to your LinkedIn profile. This “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” section shows you which recruiters, hiring managers, and other professionals have been looking at your profile recently.
Seeing who’s viewed you can provide valuable insight into which companies may be interested in you. It also helps you identify professionals you may want to connect with based on their interest in your profile.
InMail Messages
Once you hit 500 connections, you’ll be able to send InMail messages to anyone on LinkedIn, even people outside your network.
InMail acts as an internal LinkedIn email system that goes directly to the recipient’s inbox rather than getting lost amongst regular email. With InMail, you can directly reach recruiters, hiring managers, prospective clients, and others.
This gives you a powerful tool for networking, prospecting, recruiting, and sales outreach at scale on LinkedIn.
Open Profile
LinkedIn Open Profile allows you to share a customizable public profile link that anyone can view without being logged into LinkedIn. This makes it easy to share your professional profile with employers, clients, event contacts, and others.
Your Open Profile will pull profile highlights, featured content, skills, work experience, education, and recommendations. With 500+ connections, you can enable and customize Open Profile to give connections and prospects a snapshot of your LinkedIn presence.
How Does Your LinkedIn Presence Change?
In addition to new features being unlocked, reaching 500 LinkedIn connections comes with a number of changes to your presence and activity on the platform:
Your Profile Becomes More Visible
The more connections you have, the more visible and authoritative your LinkedIn profile becomes. With 500+ connections, your profile gains credibility in LinkedIn’s search algorithm and will tend to rank higher in search results.
This profile visibility can lead to more profile views, connection requests, and opportunities coming your way organically.
Your Content & Activity Gains More Reach
Any content you share on LinkedIn and your general activity have the potential to gain more visibility with an expanded network.
When you like, comment, share, or post with 500+ connections, it exposes your name and brand to a wider audience. This can lead to more engagement, followers, shares, and overall influence.
You Gain Access to More People & Opportunities
Quite simply, more connections gives you access to more people, companies, job opportunities, customers, and professional resources. With your network 2x bigger at 500+ connections, you open far more doors across industries and roles.
Your ability to find the right people, get introduced, and build relationships improves dramatically with more connections on LinkedIn.
You Have an Enhanced Ability to Build Your Brand & Business
For creators, consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs and other business professionals, 500+ connections unlocks major opportunities to grow your personal brand and business on LinkedIn.
With more connections and visibility, you can organically attract more followers, shares, engagement, and word-of-mouth interest in your brand. This makes LinkedIn a more powerful marketing channel at 500+ connections.
Tips to Leverage Your Expanded LinkedIn Network
Here are some tips to help you make the most of your expanded LinkedIn network after hitting 500+ connections:
Complete Your Profile
With increased visibility, make sure your LinkedIn profile is 100% complete with a photo, headline, summary, work experience, education, skills, recommendations, publications, certifications, and any other relevant sections. A complete, optimized profile ensures prospects understand your full professional background when they find you.
Increase Engagement
Leverage your 500+ connections by engaging more on LinkedIn. Share valuable insights, comment on other posts, join Groups, and post compelling updates to inspire engagement from your network. Increased engagement leads to more interest and opportunities.
Connect with Relevant People
Proactively grow your network by connecting with professionals who would be most relevant to your career and business goals. Search for the right people using advanced filters and send thoughtful connection invitations.
Connection Targets When You Have 500+ LinkedIn Connections |
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Join Targeted LinkedIn Groups
Look for highly engaging LinkedIn Groups centered around your industry, job function, local community, alumni groups, and niche interests. Join relevant Groups to share expertise, get noticed by Group members, and participate in discussions.
Follow Companies to Get Notified of Jobs
Through advanced search, look up companies you’re interested in and make sure to follow their LinkedIn Company Pages. Following companies ensures you get notified when they post new jobs, which are often visible to connections first before being publicly posted.
Offer Value to Your Connections
Think about how you can offer value to your new connections. Share resources, make introductions, write recommendations, congratulate milestones, and help amplify their content. The more value you provide, the more others will want to connect with you organically.
Utilize Open Profile
As mentioned previously, enable and customize Open Profile at 500+ connections. Then proactively share your Open Profile link with connections and prospects to give them an easy way to check out your LinkedIn profile.
Turn On Career Notifications
To get alerted about relevant job openings, turn on career notifications in your account settings. You can choose to get notified about jobs based on your interests, desired locations, specific companies, skills, job titles, and other keywords.
Export Connections List
For targeted outreach, export your LinkedIn connections list and segment it into customized lists like title, industry, company, location, or any other categories that are relevant to your goals. Then you can engage each niche list with personalized messages and opportunities.
Conclusion
Hitting 500 LinkedIn connections is a big milestone that unlocks new opportunities for increased visibility, reach, influence, and professional success.
With 500+ connections, you gain access to powerful features like advanced search, InMail, Open Profile, and seeing who’s viewed your profile. You also amplify your personal brand, content reach, and ability to build relationships.
Leverage your expanded network by optimizing your profile, proactively connecting, engaging thoughtfully, joining Groups, following companies, and providing value to your connections.
Reaching 500 LinkedIn connections requires dedication and consistently adding value. But it’s well worth the effort to grow your professional community and access the exclusive benefits that come with 500+ connections.