LinkedIn Growth4 min read
How to Use LinkedIn for Networking Without Being Spammy
How to use LinkedIn for networking that actually works: warm connection requests, commenting as the entry point, and follow-ups that build real relationships.
By Animesh Kudake, Co-founder, Apna Project
The short version
- Good LinkedIn networking starts with being useful in public, so people recognize your name before you ever send a request.
- Comment on someone's posts for a week or two before connecting, and your request lands as a familiar face instead of a cold ask.
- Personalize connection requests with a specific reason, and skip the pitch, since asking for anything in the first message kills most conversations.
- The relationship is built in the follow-up, not the accept, so keep showing up in their comments and messages over time.
- Networking is a slow compounding habit, not a numbers game, and consistency beats blasting hundreds of requests a week.
Turn a warm request into a conversation
Once you have engaged with someone a few times, the connection request is easy, because it is warm. Personalize it with a specific reason, reference a post of theirs or a shared interest, and keep it short. The one rule that matters most: do not pitch anything. Asking for a call, a job, or a sale in the first message is the fastest way to get ignored or removed.
The message is just a door. Getting the wording right is worth a minute, and we collected patterns that work in the best LinkedIn connection message. Send a request that names why you are reaching out, then let the relationship breathe.
Follow up, because the relationship is built after the accept
Here is where most networking dies: people treat the accepted request as the finish line. It is the starting line. A new connection who never hears from you again is not a relationship, it is a number.
The follow-up does not have to be heavy. Keep showing up in their comments. Send a short message that references something specific, with no ask attached. Share a resource that genuinely fits something they mentioned. Over weeks and months, this steady, low-pressure presence is what turns a connection into someone who takes your call, refers you, or thinks of you when an opportunity comes up.
And resist the urge to make it a numbers game. Blasting hundreds of requests a week gets you a big connection count and almost no relationships, and it runs into LinkedIn's own limits along the way. If you want to understand how much of a difference a connection actually makes versus a follower, we cover that in LinkedIn followers versus connections. Networking that works is measured in conversations started, not connections accumulated. Show up, be useful, keep in touch, and the network builds itself around you.
Frequently asked questions
How do I start networking on LinkedIn?
Start by being visible, not by sending requests. Comment thoughtfully on posts from people you want to know for a week or two, so your name becomes familiar. Then send a personalized connection request that references something specific. Warm outreach after real engagement gets accepted and replied to far more often than cold requests do.
What should I say in a LinkedIn connection request?
Say why you are reaching out, specifically. Reference a post of theirs, a shared interest, an event, or a mutual connection, and keep it short. Do not pitch anything in that first message. The goal is to open a door, not to close a deal, so a genuine, specific reason beats a generic template every time.
Is commenting a good way to network on LinkedIn?
Yes, it is one of the best. A thoughtful comment puts you in front of the person who posted and their whole audience, with no request required. Do it consistently and people start recognizing you, which makes every later connection and conversation warmer. Commenting is networking that happens in public, before any direct outreach.
How many people should I connect with on LinkedIn per week?
Focus on quality over a target number. Sending a handful of personalized, warm requests a week to people you have genuinely engaged with beats blasting hundreds of generic ones, which risks limits and gets ignored. Real networking is measured by the conversations you start, not the size of your connection count.
Written by the team building Commenti on real LinkedIn growth data. Found an error? Tell us and we’ll fix it. Accuracy beats winning.
Co-founder, Apna Project
Co-founder at Apna Project, where he helps founders and agencies turn ideas into products. Writes here on LinkedIn growth and what actually earns attention in a comment section. Commenti is the LinkedIn comment automation tool by Ampliflow.
Most LinkedIn networking advice stops at "send connection requests," which is exactly why most LinkedIn networking fails. A cold request from a stranger with a template message is easy to ignore, and a pile of them is easy to resent. Real networking on the platform runs on something slower and far more effective: being recognized before you ask for anything.
We work on the commenting side of LinkedIn, which is a front-row seat to how relationships actually form here. So here is how to use LinkedIn for networking in a way that builds warm connections instead of adding your name to everyone's spam pile.
Be useful in public first
The single biggest shift is to stop treating networking as a private act of sending requests and start treating it as a public act of showing up. Before you ask anyone to connect, make your name familiar to them.
The mechanism is simple. People check who is engaging with their work. When you leave a genuine comment on someone's post, you land in front of them and, often, in front of their audience too. Do that a few times over a week or two, and by the time a connection request arrives, you are not a stranger, you are "the person who keeps leaving good comments." That recognition is the difference between an accept and an ignore. It is also the reason so much growth here happens through engagement rather than broadcasting, which we lay out in growing on LinkedIn without posting.
Useful in public also means the occasional post that helps your target audience, not just your friends. But if you only have energy for one habit, make it commenting, because it puts you directly in the orbit of specific people you want to know.
Make commenting your entry point
Commenting is the most underused networking tool on LinkedIn, so it is worth being deliberate about it. A weak comment ("Great post!") does nothing. A comment that adds a point, shares a relevant experience, or asks a sharp question does three things at once: it gives the poster something worth reading, it shows their audience how you think, and it earns you recognition without you asking for a thing.
Aim your comments at the people you actually want in your network, and keep them consistent. A handful of thoughtful comments a day on the right posts compounds fast. The trick is having something real to say each time, which gets easier with a simple approach rather than staring at a blank box. We break that method down in our LinkedIn commenting strategy, which turns "I should comment more" into a repeatable habit.
This is squarely the problem we built Commenti around. Showing up in the right comment threads every day, in your own voice, is where networking quietly happens, and it is also where most people burn out and stop. Our whole product is designed to make that daily presence sustainable, with an approve step so the comments stay genuinely yours rather than generic filler. The honest limitation is that we can help you show up consistently, but the substance of a relationship still comes from you actually caring about the conversation. No tool changes that, and a tool that pretends to is selling you noise.