What is Linked In? The professional network, its features and its paid tiers, explained for people who sell.

Definition

LinkedIn, typed as two words in the common search "what is Linked In", is a professional social network: a website and app where members keep a profile of their work history, connect with people they know professionally, follow companies, read and share updates, search for jobs, and message each other.

LinkedIn describes itself as the world's largest professional network on the internet, and says members use it to find the right job or internship, connect and strengthen professional relationships, and learn the skills they need to succeed in their career.

LinkedIn Help adds that you can access the network from a desktop browser, the LinkedIn mobile app or the mobile web. Microsoft has owned the company since December 2016, and a basic account is free to open and keep.

What is Linked In, and why the brand is written LinkedIn

Plenty of people type "what is Linked In" as two words, and they mean the same platform. The company writes it as one word, with a capital L and a capital I: LinkedIn. The two-word version is a typing habit, not a different product or a different site.

The spelling matters in exactly one place: anything a prospect reads. In this page's view, a first line that misspells the platform you are writing on reads as unfamiliar, and on a channel where the first line decides whether the rest gets read, that is an avoidable cost.

Who founded LinkedIn, who owns it, and how big it is

Founding, vision and mission

LinkedIn's About page says the company began in co-founder Reid Hoffman's living room in 2002 and officially launched on May 5, 2003. The same page names Daniel Shapero as the leader of today's business.

LinkedIn states its vision as creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Its mission, in its own words, is to connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful. Microsoft's Form 10-K opens its LinkedIn description with nearly the same sentence.

The Microsoft acquisition

Microsoft announced on June 13, 2016 that it would acquire LinkedIn for $196 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion, inclusive of LinkedIn's net cash. The announcement put LinkedIn's membership at the time at more than 433 million members worldwide.

LinkedIn's About page states that Microsoft completed the acquisition in December 2016. Microsoft's annual filing now reports LinkedIn as one of its revenue lines, which is why the company's financial figures come from Microsoft rather than from LinkedIn itself.

Members and revenue

LinkedIn's About page describes the network as having more than 1 billion members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, as checked on October 1, 2026. A member count is not a count of active users, and the About page gives members only.

Microsoft's Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026 reports LinkedIn revenue of $19,817 million, and states that LinkedIn revenue increased 11 percent, with growth across all lines of business. Microsoft's fiscal year ends on June 30, so these are not calendar years.

That last row is the most useful map of the business. The 10-K says LinkedIn revenue is mainly affected by demand for Talent, Sales and Premium subscriptions, plus member engagement for advertising. How LinkedIn makes money breaks each line down with its sources.

How LinkedIn works

Mechanically, LinkedIn is a graph of profiles, and everything else sits on top of it. The feed, messaging, jobs, company Pages, advertising and the paid sales and hiring products all read the same profiles and the same connections between users.

Those are the five parts in the order a new member meets them. You build a profile, you connect to people you know, the feed shows what they share, you message the ones you are connected to, and companies reach you through Pages and job postings.

The main LinkedIn features

The table below lists what a professional user touches in a normal week, plus the paid products LinkedIn offers employers, recruiters and sales teams. Every feature reads from the profile, which is why an incomplete profile weakens all of them at once.

In this page's view, many professionals use only a handful of these. Job seekers live in the profile, the feed and jobs. Recruiters live in search and Recruiter. Sellers live in search, profiles and messaging. What all of them share is the graph underneath and the media posted on top of it.

The profile, the unit of the platform

A LinkedIn profile is a member's page: photo, headline, About section, positions, education, skills, recommendations and everything they have posted. LinkedIn says a complete profile helps you connect with opportunities by showing your professional story through experience, skills and education.

The profile does two jobs at once. It is the page anyone lands on after any other action on the platform, and it is the record LinkedIn search reads when someone filters by title, company, skill or location.

The second job is why sellers care. A buyer who keeps a current profile has, without intending to, listed their own role, employer and history in a searchable directory. Our guide on how to create a LinkedIn profile walks through each field.

A profile is not a resume

In this page's view, the difference is audience. A resume is written for one application and sent privately. A profile is public, read by potential employers, clients and colleagues at the same time, and tied to posts, recommendations and a network that no resume can carry.

That changes how it should be written. A resume lists duties for a hiring manager. A profile works better when the headline says what you do and for whom, because recruiters, buyers and former colleagues all arrive with different questions and read the same top lines.

Connections, degrees and the shape of your network

LinkedIn Help states that your network is made up of your 1st-degree, 2nd-degree and 3rd-degree connections, plus your followers and fellow members of your LinkedIn groups, and that the degree of connection affects how you can interact with someone.

The graph is capped. LinkedIn Help notes that members can have a maximum of 30,000 1st-degree connections, described as a limit that keeps the site experience workable. Followers are counted separately from connections.

Degrees explain why two reps working identical lists get different results. What 3rd means on LinkedIn and the LinkedIn connection limit both come straight out of this structure.

The feed, posts, articles and newsletters

The feed is the stream of posts from the people, companies and topics you follow. LinkedIn Help says its AI systems and algorithms consider hundreds of signals to decide what appears in each member's feed, including the context of a post and signals from your profile, network and activity.

LinkedIn also states that demographic information such as age, race or gender is not used as a signal for content visibility. Beyond those statements the ranking is not documented, so any specific rule about posting times or formats is someone's inference rather than a published fact.

Posts, articles and newsletters

Posting starts in the share box at the top of the homepage. LinkedIn Help says members can like and comment on posts and articles, respond with reactions, and share their thoughts and ideas with other members from that box.

Articles are the long-form option. LinkedIn Help says all members, and super admins or content admins of a Page, can publish articles about their expertise, that articles appear in the Activity section of your profile, and that the feature is not available in the LinkedIn mobile app.

The article editor lets you add a cover image, media, links and embeds, set an SEO title and description, share a draft with other members, and schedule publication. Newsletters build on articles: LinkedIn Help says subscribers are notified about each new edition by push, in-app and email notifications.

LinkedIn Help also notes that a newsletter author can see a subscriber's name, profile photo, job title and headline, subject to settings, and that subscribing also follows the author. In this page's view, that makes a subscriber list a list of people who chose to hear from you.

For a business, the feed is the main free surface that reaches buyers who were not searching for you, in this page's view. That is why a company Page and employee posts earn their time, and why a steady content habit matters more than any single post.

Messaging, invitations and InMail

LinkedIn Messaging lets you write to members you are connected to. The help page is explicit: you can message your 1st-degree connections, and fellow group members within group pages, for free. If you are not connected, InMail is the documented alternative.

Invitations are how people become connected. On a free account, LinkedIn Help allows a personalized message on three connection requests per month in one article and five in another, and each message can be up to 200 characters. Premium members can personalize all requests, with notes of up to 300 characters.

InMail is a Premium feature for messaging members you are not connected to. Credits come with the subscription, expire after 90 days, and are returned when a recipient accepts, declines or replies within 90 days. A member who has turned InMail off in their message preferences cannot be reached this way.

These three limits shape LinkedIn outreach more than any tactic does. Read what InMail on LinkedIn is before buying credits, and how to connect on LinkedIn before spending one of your few monthly notes on a generic line.

Company Pages

A LinkedIn Page is an organization's presence on the platform. LinkedIn Help says you can create one for free to represent and build your organization's brand, and that Pages help members learn about your business, brand, products and services, and job opportunities.

The Page types LinkedIn offers are a company Page, a Showcase page and an educational institution Page. LinkedIn Help says a Page can be created on desktop or in the iOS app, not on Android, and whoever creates it becomes its super admin and can add other admins.

A Page is not a sales channel on its own, in this page's view. It is the destination that posts, ads and employee profiles point at, and the page a buyer checks after reading a message. The LinkedIn company page guide covers setting one up properly.

Groups and Events

LinkedIn groups, in LinkedIn's own description, give professionals in the same industry or with similar interests a place to share insights and experiences, ask for guidance and build connections. Once you are a member you can join conversations and send message requests to other members.

Events sit beside them. LinkedIn Help lists creating and joining professional events, such as online workshops, seminars and networking events, among the ways a new member builds a network.

Both matter to a seller for one structural reason: fellow group members count as part of your network, which changes who you can message without an invitation. LinkedIn groups covers how to pick ones worth joining.

Jobs and hiring

Finding a job is one of the first uses LinkedIn Help names. It describes searching from the search field or the Jobs page, describing the role you want in your own words, filtering the results, and turning on alerts for a search you expect to repeat.

LinkedIn Help adds that members can research companies, reach out to the hiring community, save job searches and let connections and recruiters know they are open to job opportunities. All of that works on a free account.

There are two kinds of posting. Easy Apply lets you apply on LinkedIn; Apply sends you to the company's own site or a third-party site. On the employer side, hiring runs through job postings and the Recruiter products.

Hiring matters to sellers even when they are not hiring. In this page's view, a company posting several roles in one function is telling you where its budget went, which makes job posts one of the more useful public signals on the platform.

What is LinkedIn used for

LinkedIn Help groups the starting uses as creating a profile, building a network, finding a job, participating in conversations and posting content. This page groups what people do on the platform into six uses, and many members touch more than one.

• Careers: keeping a public work history, searching and applying for jobs, and being found by recruiters who filter by title and skills.
• Hiring: job postings, candidate search and the Recruiter products, working on the employer side of the same profiles.
• Networking: staying in touch with current and former colleagues, meeting people in the same field, and asking for introductions.
• Learning: LinkedIn Learning courses, which are included with several Premium subscriptions rather than sold one at a time.
• Marketing: company Pages, employee posts, newsletters, events and paid advertising aimed at roles and industries.
• Sales: search, invitations, messaging, InMail and Sales Navigator, which the rest of this page covers.

All six run on one engine. The profile that helps a member get hired is the same record that lets a recruiter or a seller find them, which is how a platform built for careers became a working channel for B2B.

Who LinkedIn is for

LinkedIn Help answers this plainly: LinkedIn is a platform for anyone looking to advance their career, including people from backgrounds as different as small business owners, students and job seekers. Nothing in that description limits it to one industry or one level of seniority.

Free LinkedIn versus Premium, and Sales Navigator

A basic account is free. LinkedIn lists what it includes: finding and reconnecting with colleagues and classmates, requesting and providing recommendations, searching and viewing other members' profiles, receiving unlimited InMail messages, and saving up to three searches with weekly alerts.

Premium is a family of subscriptions rather than one product. LinkedIn's comparison of plans covers Premium Career, Premium Business, Premium All-in-One, Sales Navigator, Recruiter Lite, LinkedIn Learning and Premium Company Page, each aimed at a different job.

The credit counts come from LinkedIn's own comparison of subscription plans, read on the date at the top of this page. No price appears here, because prices change. LinkedIn's own pages carry the current figures for your account and region.

LinkedIn Help says Premium subscriptions may be available to try free for one month. Its introduction to Premium adds that not every member qualifies, that a valid credit card is required, and that a trial converts to a paid plan unless you cancel before it ends.

Who viewed your profile

Profile viewer data is split by tier. LinkedIn Help says a basic account shows the three most recent viewers in the last 90 days, while Premium Career and Business show a full list of viewers for up to 365 days, with filters and trends.

The commercial use limit

Free accounts that search heavily run into a cap. LinkedIn Help says that reaching the commercial use limit indicates you are likely using LinkedIn for hiring or prospecting, that the free monthly usage resets at midnight PST on the 1st of each month, and that LinkedIn cannot lift it on request.

Searching for profiles, browsing People Also Viewed and viewing the People tab of a Page all count toward it. Searching by name in the top search box, browsing your 1st-degree connections and searching for jobs do not. Premium Business, Recruiter Lite and Sales Navigator raise the limit.

Sales Navigator, the sales tier

LinkedIn describes Sales Navigator as an AI-powered sales tool built on its B2B network for finding the right buyers, building stronger relationships and growing pipeline. Its plan comparison adds advanced search, custom lead and account lists, and real-time updates and alerts.

LinkedIn versus other social networks

In this page's view, the difference from consumer social media is the graph. On LinkedIn the graph is professional, the profile is a work history, and the content is about work. Three consequences follow from that one difference.

• People are findable by role: employer, title and industry sit on the profile, so search filters behave the way a business directory behaves.
• Access is gated by relationship: degrees, invitation limits and InMail decide who may write to whom, and LinkedIn publishes those rules in its Help Center.
• A message about work is normal: a note from a stranger about a business problem fits here, where it would feel out of place on a network built around friends and family.

The third point is why outreach works on this platform at all. It is also why LinkedIn caps personalized invitation notes, which its Help Center says keeps outreach thoughtful and relevant, and why its User Agreement bans bots that send messages or drive inauthentic engagement.

What LinkedIn means for B2B sales

For a seller, LinkedIn is three things at once. It is a directory of buyers who describe themselves, a feed that shows what those buyers are thinking about this week, and a messaging channel with limits that are published rather than guessed at.

In this page's view, the order matters more than the tooling. LinkedIn prospecting is the daily version of this work: build the list, read before writing, connect with a reason, and only then message.

How to join LinkedIn, and the account rules

Signing up takes a first and last name, an email address and, if prompted, a password. LinkedIn Help says you click Join now and complete any further steps, or join with a Google or Apple login, which does not require a password.

The rules behind the sign-up form matter more to sellers than to anyone else, because they decide what a sales team may and may not do with accounts. These come from LinkedIn's User Agreement and its sign-up help page.

1. Create the account and the profile

   Signing up is free. LinkedIn calls creating your profile the best way to begin, because the profile is what summarizes your experience to connections, employers and recruiters.

2. Rebuild the network you already have

   LinkedIn suggests starting with family, friends, past and current classmates and coworkers, then following the people, companies and topics that match your work.

3. Set the profile up to be found

   A real photo, a headline that says what you do and for whom, an About section in the first person, and positions written as outcomes rather than duties.

4. Join conversations before starting one

   Read the feed, comment where you have something to add, and join a group or two in your field. This is what makes a later message recognizable.

5. Decide what you want from it

   Career, hiring, marketing or sales. The tier you need, the posting habit and the time it takes all follow from that answer, not the other way round.

Common mistakes

• Writing "Linked In" in a message sent on LinkedIn. It is one word, and the reader notices in the first line.
• Leaving the profile half built, then sending messages that push every recipient straight to it.
• Spending one of your three or five monthly personalized invitation notes on a line that could have been sent to anyone.
• Opening a second account, or a profile under a company name, to get more invitations. The User Agreement allows one account in your real name.
• Buying Sales Navigator before anyone on the team has a daily search and alert routine to put it into.
• Pitching in the first message after a connection is accepted, instead of naming why you connected.
• Treating InMail as free volume. Credits are limited by plan and expire after 90 days.
• Building a content plan on a posting rule that LinkedIn never published and does not confirm.

In a sequence

New sellers hit the same wall as new members: the first message. The template below was written for this page. It goes to someone who has just accepted your invitation, names why you connected, and asks one question that can be answered in a line.

Hi {{firstName}},

Thanks for connecting. I sent the invite because {{reasonYouConnected}}, which is the part of {{companyName}} I keep running into.

We put together {{oneConcreteThing}} for people in your role. Happy to send it over, with no call attached.

Is {{problem}} on your plate this quarter, or does it sit with someone else?

{{senderName}}

Frequently asked questions

Cite this definition

Jeluvi, "LinkedIn", B2B sales glossary, https://jeluvi.com/glossary/linkedin/, last checked Oct 1, 2026.