LinkedIn creator mode is no longer a toggle you switch on, so the tools it used to bundle now have to be set one by one.

What LinkedIn creator mode was

LinkedIn creator mode was a switch in the Resources section of your own profile. Turning it on told LinkedIn that you publish, and the profile rearranged itself around that: the primary button changed from Connect to Follow, and your follower count moved into the introduction.

It also gave you a place to display the topics you post about as hashtags, and it grouped the sharing tools and the creator analytics that LinkedIn had built for members who publish content regularly.

It was never a paid tier and it never unlocked a separate algorithm. It was a presentation setting plus a shortcut to a set of tools, and that matters, because it explains why removing it changed so little about what you can actually do.

What happened to creator mode

LinkedIn retired it. The help page titled Updates to Creator Mode announced the change and lists it feature by feature. The sentence that matters is short: you keep the same sharing tools and analytics, and the creator mode on and off toggle in the Resources section of your profile is removed.

So the answer to "how do I turn on creator mode" is that there is nothing to turn on. Guides that walk you through the Resources section are describing a screen that no longer exists, which is why the steps never match what people see.

Where each creator mode feature lives now

None of the creator features on this list were deleted with the toggle. Each one simply has its own home now, and you reach it directly instead of through a single switch.

Follow versus connect, and why the button decides it

The primary button is the one decision creator mode made for you, so it is worth understanding what each side actually does. LinkedIn Help puts it plainly: following lets someone learn from your content, while connecting builds a two-way relationship.

A follower is an audience. A connection is a channel. Most sellers need both, and the button only decides which one a stranger reaches for first. Our guide to how to connect on LinkedIn covers the invitation side in detail.

How to make Follow the primary button

This is the setting that inherited the job creator mode used to do. It lives in the followers settings, not on the profile itself, which is the main reason people cannot find it.

1. Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage and select Settings and Privacy.
2. Select Visibility on the left, then click Followers under Visibility of your LinkedIn activity.
3. In the Who can follow you section, choose Everyone on LinkedIn or Your connections.
4. Under Make follow primary, turn the toggle on for Follow or off for Connect.

LinkedIn Help adds two warnings worth reading before you touch it. Changes can take up to 24 hours to take effect, so do not judge it by refreshing the page.

And if you limit followers to your connections, followers outside your network are removed, your follower number drops to match your connection count, and the Follow button disappears from next to your posts and articles. That is not a setting to test casually.

What happens when someone connects with a Follow-first profile

Follow primary does not block invitations. LinkedIn Help describes the route: on the member's profile, open the More menu in the introduction section and choose Connect, then add a note if you want one.

Two details follow from that, and both are documented. Sending the invitation makes you follow that person immediately, while the invitation is still pending. If they decline it, you keep following them until you manually unfollow.

That is useful to know in both directions. As a sender, a declined invitation still leaves you reading their posts. As a seller with Follow primary, some of your follower count is people who wanted to connect and settled.

Why Connect disappears from profiles you visit

Follow primary is only one of the reasons. LinkedIn Help lists several cases where the Connect button is not shown, and mixing them up leads people to blame creator mode for something else entirely.

• They chose Follow as the default. Connect moves into the More menu.
• You have over 500 connections. By default the Connect button is replaced with Follow and moves into the More dropdown on the introduction card.
• You already sent an invitation, or you are already connected to that member.
• Your primary email is unconfirmed or bounced, which puts invitations on hold.
• The member is out of your network, which is where InMail comes in instead.

On some Follow-first profiles you are also asked for the member's email address before the invitation will go through. That is a deliberate check that you actually know them.

The Follow link and the Follow button for your own channels

This one survived the change quietly and almost nobody uses it. The Follow link is a personal link, or an embeddable button, that lets anyone start following you in one click from a site, an email signature or a newsletter.

LinkedIn Help names two criteria: a good standing record under the Professional Community Policies, and a location outside mainland China. It also states the prerequisite plainly, which is easy to miss: to add the Follow link or button, set Follow as your primary action first.

You find it in Contact info in your introduction section, at the bottom under Sharing on socials, with a Copy link and a Copy code option. If you see a Learn more prompt there instead, you do not meet the criteria yet.

The Featured section, which is doing most of the work now (collaborative articles, the other creator-era feature, are covered in LinkedIn collaborative articles)

With profile hashtags gone and the About section moved up, Featured is the part of the profile you still control tightly. It sits near the top and shows what you want a buyer to open first.

• Posts you authored or re-shared on LinkedIn, including a carousel that carries a full argument.
• Articles you published on the platform, which includes newsletter editions.
• Links to external sites, such as a case study, a calculator or a booking page.
• Uploaded media, meaning images, documents, presentations and videos.

Two limits are worth knowing. You must have already authored and published a post or article before you can feature it, and posts from Events you attend or Groups you belong to cannot be featured, to protect other members.

You can add an unlimited number of items, though only 400 are displayed, and the section is hidden from visitors when it is empty. Featured also respects your post visibility settings, so a connections-only post stays connections-only there.

Newsletter tools after the change

Newsletters were one of the content tools creator mode used to unlock, and they are now open to everyone. LinkedIn Help states that all LinkedIn members have access to create a newsletter, and you start one from Write article in the share box, then Create newsletter.

The reason it matters for selling is the notification. After you publish an edition, push, in-app and email notifications go to every subscriber, which is not true of an ordinary post. Subscribing to a newsletter also makes that member follow the author.

Company pages are the exception that still has a gate: more than 150 followers or connections, a history of sharing original content, and a good standing record. Our LinkedIn newsletter guide covers cadence, naming and the analytics in full.

LinkedIn Live and audio events

The Updates to Creator Mode page says that if you had access to LinkedIn Live, Audio Events and Newsletter with creator mode on, you keep that access. What it does not say is how you get access now, and the Live criteria page answers that separately.

• Audience base: more than 150 followers or connections makes you eligible to be evaluated.
• Standing: a history of abiding by the Professional Community Policies.
• Geography: not available for members and Pages based in mainland China.
• Account age: the account or page must have been created at least 30 days ago.

Creating an event on LinkedIn triggers the eligibility review instantly: if you qualify, LinkedIn Live appears in the Event format dropdown. Note that you cannot stream directly from LinkedIn, so a broadcast tool is required. See LinkedIn Events for the event side.

Creator analytics and the Analytics and tools page

This is the clearest win from the retirement. LinkedIn Help states that all LinkedIn members have access to creator analytics, and the FAQ answers the eligibility question directly: no, there are no criteria to meet.

You reach them from your own profile. Scroll to the Analytics section, choose Show all analytics, then select Post impressions for combined post analytics, or Total followers for audience analytics.

Read the percentages carefully. LinkedIn calculates the change in impressions, engagements or followers by comparing the current date range with the previous one, and it states that all numbers displayed are estimates. Our LinkedIn analytics guide goes metric by metric.

Engagement can even show a negative day, because removed reactions and deleted comments count against that day's total. If that surprises you, the impressions entry explains what the counter is really measuring.

What is gone for good

Two things did not move anywhere, and no setting brings them back. Everything else on the creator features list survived the change in some form.

• The toggle itself. There is no creator mode screen, no on and off control, and no status a tool can read.
• Profile hashtags. The topics you post about were removed from the introduction section in February 2024, to simplify it.

The practical replacement for those topic hashtags is your own content; hashtags now live only in posts, as our guide to LinkedIn hashtags explains. The headline, the About section that now sits at the top, and the Featured items have to carry the topic signal, which is the argument behind LinkedIn SEO.

The parts that need Premium

Two profile features in this area are not free, and they are often confused with creator tools because they sit in the same part of the profile.

The custom button, which links your introduction section to a store, website, portfolio, blog, appointment page, newsletter or services page, is documented as available to a select group of Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite subscribers. It also replaces services on your profile if you had those.

Pinning existing profile sections into Featured, such as a certification, a recommendation or a project, is the second one, and it is listed as Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter only. Adding ordinary posts, links and files to Featured stays free. LinkedIn Premium covers the rest of the tiers.

What a salesperson should do now

1. Decide whether Follow or Connect should be primary

   Follow suits a profile that publishes and wants an audience. Connect suits a seller who needs the inbox and the network more than the follower count.

2. Set the primary action in Settings and Privacy

   Open Settings and Privacy, then Visibility, then Followers. Under Make follow primary, turn the toggle on for Follow or off for Connect.

3. Check who is allowed to follow you

   In the same Followers screen, Everyone on LinkedIn keeps the door open. Your connections removes outside followers and takes the Follow button off your posts.

4. Copy your Follow link if you have it

   Open Contact info in your introduction section and look under Sharing on socials for the link or the button code.

5. Rebuild the top of your profile with Featured

   Add the Featured section, then pin the posts, articles, links and files you want a buyer to open first.

6. Open Analytics and tools and pick two numbers

   Use the Analytics section of your profile to watch combined post analytics and audience demographics, and ignore the rest for a quarter.

None of that is creator mode by another name. It is a profile that publishes, set up deliberately, which is the same thing a good LinkedIn content strategy asks for.

Should a seller set Follow as the primary button?

There is no correct answer, only a trade. Score your own situation against the rows below before you touch the toggle.

Whatever you choose, the audience still has to be worth following. LinkedIn prospecting and publishing feed each other, and the button only routes the traffic that your posts already created.

Common mistakes after the change

• Hunting for a creator mode toggle in the Resources section, which was removed in March 2024.
• Following a 2023 tutorial step by step and concluding that your account is broken.
• Setting Follow primary on a profile that has not published anything in months.
• Limiting followers to connections to clean up the count, then losing the Follow button on every post.
• Assuming creator analytics need Premium, when LinkedIn Help says all members have access.
• Reading the percentage change as growth against a fixed baseline instead of against the previous date range.
• Leaving Featured empty, so the section hides itself and the top of the profile says nothing.
• Waiting for the setting to apply instantly, when changes can take up to 24 hours.

The note to send a Follow-first profile

When a prospect has Follow as their primary action, the invitation route is the More menu, and the note has to explain why you are not simply following. This example was written for this page, and it assumes you have actually read something they published.

Hi {{firstName}},

Your profile shows Follow first, so I am following, but I would rather be able to reply to you properly.

I read {{postOrArticle}} and it matched something we keep running into with {{roleOrTeam}}: {{problem}}. I have no pitch attached to this.

If a connection is the wrong fit, ignoring this is completely fine and I will keep reading.

{{senderName}}

Frequently asked questions