LinkedIn Connections Hockey Stick

Today I hit an inflection point. I’m OK, It didn’t hurt. I connected with someone on LinkedIn who is really connected. Since my post, LinkedIn to More Than a Million, I’ve been watching my LinkedIn network creep up from 1,000,000 people to almost 50,000 more.  Today I am connected to 1,814,100+ people on LinkedIn.
I connected with an individual who has more than 5,000 connections. Compared to my 116 connections that is absolutely insane. Now my network is going to explode. Let’s assume that each of his connections has 100 connections (I actually have no idea so this is just an example). That would be 50,000 people that are two degrees away from me. If each of these people make 1 additional connection 50,000 people join my network. That would be equivalent to the entire growth of my network in the past month. I have a feeling things just changed.

For Better or For Worse

Right now I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I expect the connection I made will be great, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it. Since I haven’t experienced a network this large I can’t tell what it means if anything. I am making an effort to do a better job at networking so this could be very helpful. If it is true that it isn’t what you know but who you know, I may have just met a game changer.

LinkedIn to More Than a Million

I noticed recently that I am linked to more than a million professionals on LinkedIn. The number of people in my network has been growing since I began using LinkedIn years ago. However, I noticed that within the past few months it was growing at a faster rate and even approaching 1,000,000. I planned to write a blog post on the accelerated growth and my excitement that the number would soon be more than a million. Alas, I waited too long. Within a few days of considering the idea it was too late. I already passed the mark. I've also discovered the rapid increase is continuing.

The thing I find exciting is during the last several months I have added very few connections on LinkedIn. I connect with one or two people a month. So the number of my connections hasn't increased that much but the number of people I am connected to is growing faster and faster. Pretty cool. Building my network has gotten to the point where it grows with or without me. This is a really powerful phenomenon. I have been very particular who I connect with on LinkedIn. I currently have just over 100 connections. If you're not familiar with the way LinkedIn works you have three degrees of separation included in your network. So the group of people you are linked to includes your connections (1st level), their connections (2nd level), and their connections (3rd level). If you have 100 connections and the same is true for each of your 1st level connections that would add up to 10,000 professionals as 2nd level connections. Add in each of their 100 connections and you find your way to 1,000,000 3rd level connections.

Now for some fun. What happens to the number of people you are linked to if you add 1 connection? If that one connection has 100 connections who also have 100 connections you just increased your network by 10,000. If each of your 100 connections added one connection, each with 100 connections, your network would increase by another 10,000 people. This means if everyone added one connection a month you would gain 20,000 new members in your network.