What Does 1st 2nd 3rd Mean on LinkedIn? A Complete Guide
LinkedIn has become an invaluable platform for professionals looking to network, find job opportunities, and advance their careers. With over 830 million members worldwide, it provides access to the world‘s largest professional network.
One of the key activities on LinkedIn is connecting with other professionals in your industry. However, if you‘re new to the platform, you may be wondering – what does 1st, 2nd and 3rd mean on LinkedIn when referring to your connections?
In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll explain the meaning behind these relationship labels and how you can leverage connections of all degrees to significantly expand your professional network.
Overview of LinkedIn Relationship Labels
On LinkedIn, your connections are categorized into three types depending on how closely you are connected to them:
1st-degree connections: People you are directly connected to on LinkedIn, either because you sent them an invite to connect or they sent one to you which you accepted. You can easily message 1st-degree connections.
2nd-degree connections: People who are connected to your 1st-degree connections. You have a mutual connection with them through your shared 1st-degree connection.
3rd-degree connections: People connected to your 2nd-degree connections. They are twice removed from you, but you still share connections in common.
Here is a visual representation of 1st, 2nd and 3rd-degree LinkedIn connections:
As you can see, the number associated with the degree of connection refers to the number of people in between you and the other member. Understanding this crucial difference allows you to navigate LinkedIn more effectively.
Benefits of 1st Degree Connections
Your 1st-degree LinkedIn connections are the most valuable, as they allow for seamless communication and provide maximum visibility of your profile and activity.
Some key advantages include:
Messaging capabilities: You can directly message 1st-degree connections using LinkedIn‘s messaging platform. This facilitates networking opportunities.
See full profiles: You have complete access to a 1st-degree connection‘s full profile, including their work experience, education, skills, endorsements etc.
Get updates: You see all updates, work anniversaries and job changes of your 1st-degree connections in your LinkedIn feed. This allows you to stay updated and reach out at strategic moments.
Improved visibility: Any content you share or publish on LinkedIn is most likely to appear in the feeds of 1st-degree connections, increasing your visibility significantly.
Referral opportunities: You can leverage your shared connection to obtain referrals, testimonials and recommendations, which can be hugely beneficial for career growth.
For these reasons, it is advisable to actively grow your 1st-degree network by sending customized connection invites. We‘ll explore some best practices around this later in the guide.
Leveraging 2nd & 3rd Degree Connections
While 1st-degree connections allow for the most direct communication, your 2nd and 3rd-degree networks still present valuable opportunities to expand your overall connectivity.
You can leverage these extended networks in the following ways:
Network Expansion Opportunities
Your 2nd and 3rd-degree networks essentially function as pre-qualified lead lists for potential new 1st-degree connections.
Rather than sending random invites, you can use shared connections to identify and target the most relevant professionals to connect with within your industry.
This allows you to expand your network exponentially while still ensuring relevance.
Increased Visibility
Although you don‘t have full profile access or get updates from 2nd & 3rd-degree connections, any content you share or publish could still appear in their feeds, depending on their settings.
This means these connections can still increase your overall visibility and reach on the platform.
Referral Channels
The mutual connections you share with 2nd and 3rd-degree connections serve as pre-established referral channels.
You can leverage these shared ties to obtain introductions or recommendations that allow you to connect with and build rapport with new contacts.
Best Practices for Connection Requests
While your 1st-degree network is critical, you can only send invites to 2nd & 3rd-degree connections if you have a premium LinkedIn account.
However, here are some best practices to employ when sending connection requests:
Personalize invites: Always customize invitation messages to explain why you want to connect, whether you have a shared background, interests or are looking to explore career opportunities.
Limit volume: Avoid blasting out generic invites to many people simultaneously, as this will likely result in a high ignore rate and may flag your account for spamming.
Follow up strategically: If you don‘t receive a response after 2 weeks, consider a short follow up expressing continued interest in connecting. But don‘t over-pursue if ignored.
Monitor weekly limits: LinkedIn restricts the amount of invites you can send each week, so track this to avoid exceeding the thresholds. Limits depend on the size of your existing network.
By following these tips, you can increase your chances of invite accepts and build an engaged 1st-degree network.
Open vs Closed Networking Approaches
LinkedIn gives you control over the openness of your professional network via profile and activity privacy settings.
Open networking involves allowing anyone to send you invites and connect with you directly. The benefit is you can rapidly expand your reachable network.
However, this exposes you to more inbound solicitation and spam requests. It also results in less relevant connections.
Conversely, a closed networking approach entails restricting invites only to those you explicitly invite yourself first. This ensures all 1st-degree connections are relevant and engaged. However, it can limit your overall connectivity and visibility.
Ultimately, your goal should be to find an optimal balance based on your priorities around the size, strength and relevance of your network. But in most cases, moderation is advisable.
Neither an entirely open nor completely closed off approach is ideal on LinkedIn. As with most things, balance and prioritization are key.
Profile Visibility Settings
In addition to controlling who can connect with you, LinkedIn provides profile visibility settings that dictate what level of profile data each degree of connection can access.
As mentioned, your full profile is viewable to 1st-degree connections by default.
However for 2nd & 3rd-degree connections, you can dictate if they see your full or limited profile. You can also block extended networks entirely from seeing your profile.
It’s worth exploring these settings options and configuring them based on your preferences around privacy and building new connections.
Here’s a useful visual guide to the various profile visibility variations available:
Premium Accounts & Visibility
While most core LinkedIn features are available for free, upgrading to premium unlocks additional benefits, particularly around search and building extended connections.
Two of the most relevant premium features include:
Seeing full profiles of your 3rd degree network: This allows you to identify relevant professionals even within your outer network and directly message them.
Seeing who has viewed your full profile: You can view full details of anyone who has viewed your profile recently, even if they aren‘t part of your immediate network. This visibility supports targeted outreach.
Investing in a premium account therefore allows you much more flexibility in networking with connections beyond just your 1st-degree circle, by providing additional visibility and reach.
Average Number of Connections
While there are no hard and fast rules dictating the size of your ideal LinkedIn network, the average number of connections generally varies based on level of experience and industry.
Some benchmarks to be aware for planning your own growth:
- Entry-level professionals: 150-300+ connections
- Mid-career professionals: 500-1000+ connections
- Late career executives: 1000-2000+ connections
- Active recruiters and sales professionals: 2000+ connections
However, most important is ensuring your 1st-degree network is filled with relevant, engaged contacts rather than meaningless connections.
Quality trumps quantity every time when building your LinkedIn inner circle.
Avoiding Connection Limit Thresholds
To prevent spamming and unsolicited invites, LinkedIn enforces weekly limits on the amount of connection requests you can send based on your current number of 1st, 2nd & 3rd-degree connections.
If you try to exceed these thresholds, LinkedIn will prohibit additional invites, so it‘s important to monitor your numbers.
Here is an overview of the current max request amounts per week:
Less than 500 Connections: Up to 100 invites
500 – 750 Connections: Only 1 invite for every 2 connections
Over 750 Connections: Maximum of 3 invites per week
By pacing yourself appropriately and personalizing invites, you can achieve consistent network growth while avoiding thresholds.
LinkedIn Connections for Sales Professionals
Establishing a wide 1st-degree network filled with key decision makers and influencers within your target companies is invaluable for sales professionals leveraging LinkedIn.
This concept of leveraging social media to impact sales outcomes is referred to as social selling, which has completely transformed sales methodologies.
In fact, according to recent data, social connections and relationships now impact 90% of B2B purchase decisions.
With over 30 million decision makers across 20 million companies represented on the platform, establishing as robust a 1st-degree network as feasible has become a key pillar within any social selling strategy today.
Start Connecting Now
We hope this guide has helped demystify the meaning of LinkedIn connections and provided actionable tips on how to start strategically expanding your professional network.
The key takeaway is while 1st-degree connections are ideal, you network potential extends way beyond that immediate circle.
Leverage all available visibility tools and connections in common to tap into these wider opportunities.
Remember, connections open doors but shared interests and objectives cement relationships. Use LinkedIn to facilitate both.
Good luck connecting!
