LinkedIn Creator Mode: What Happened and What to Use Now

You can no longer turn on LinkedIn Creator Mode: LinkedIn removed the on/off toggle in March 2024, after removing profile hashtags ("topics") in February 2024. Most of what Creator Mode gave you did not disappear. The Follow button, newsletters, LinkedIn Live, creator analytics and the Featured section are still there, just in different places or open to everyone. This guide maps each old feature to where it lives now.

What happened to LinkedIn Creator Mode

LinkedIn explained the change in its Help article Updates to Creator Mode. In short, LinkedIn kept the sharing tools and analytics but removed the switch, so there is no longer a "creator" version of a profile and a "regular" one. Here is what happened to each piece:

Can you still turn on Creator Mode?

No. If Creator Mode is "not showing" or "not available" in your settings, nothing is wrong with your account: the toggle no longer exists for anyone. Tutorials that tell you to open Resources or Settings and switch Creator Mode on describe a control LinkedIn removed in March 2024. Nearly everything it offered is available today without Premium, with one exception covered below: the link in your profile introduction.

How to make Follow your primary profile button

This is the setting most people actually want when they search for Creator Mode. LinkedIn's Help article on follower settings gives these steps.

On desktop:

1. Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
2. Select Settings & Privacy.
3. Select Visibility on the left.
4. Under Visibility of your LinkedIn activity, click Followers.
5. Under Who can follow you, choose Everyone on LinkedIn.
6. Under Make follow primary, turn the toggle on.

On mobile: tap your profile picture, then Settings & Privacy, the Visibility tab, and Followers. The same two options appear there.

A few details worth knowing:

• Your 1st-degree connections follow you automatically. Anyone else can follow you without connecting if you allow Everyone on LinkedIn, which also lets your posts be shared off LinkedIn.
• If you limit followers to your connections, followers outside your network are removed and the Follow button disappears from your posts and articles.
• When Follow is your primary action, someone who sends you a connection request also follows you while they wait, and keeps following even if you decline, until they unfollow.
• LinkedIn says changes can take up to 24 hours to show.

Follow or Connect: which should be primary?

Choose Follow if you post regularly and want people who don't know you to keep seeing your work without a connection request. Followers receive your public posts, articles and shares in their feed, but they never see posts you share with connections only. Choose Connect if you mainly use LinkedIn to build a tight network, for example while job searching or doing partner outreach. You can switch back at any time.

How to add a link to your LinkedIn profile now

Creator Mode used to let you add a link to the introduction section of your profile. LinkedIn has removed that option. Today you have three choices:

1. Custom button (Premium). LinkedIn's Help says this is available to a select group of Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite subscribers, and may reach more members later. Labels include Visit my website, View my newsletter, Book an appointment and View my services. It appears on your profile, in search results, in messages and on your posts in the feed. Add it from your profile with Add custom button in the introduction section.
2. Contact info websites (free). You can add up to three website links. Go to your profile, click Contact info, click the Edit icon, then Add website, choose a type and save.
3. Featured section (free). Feature external links, documents, images, your own posts and LinkedIn articles. Only logged-in members can see Featured items, and up to 400 items display.

Note that adding a custom button replaces services you added with the Add profile section button. If you already list services, decide which one you want shown.

Newsletters, LinkedIn Live and analytics without Creator Mode

LinkedIn newsletters

LinkedIn's Help says all LinkedIn members can create a newsletter. Click Write article at the top of the homepage, then use the Manage dropdown and select Create newsletter. When someone starts following a member who has a newsletter, LinkedIn automatically sends them an invitation to subscribe, which makes a newsletter a natural companion to a Follow-first profile. Pages, not members, still need to meet access criteria.

LinkedIn Live

There is no application for LinkedIn Live. Per LinkedIn Help, you need more than 150 followers and/or connections, a good-standing record under the Professional Community Policies, an account at least 30 days old, and to be outside mainland China. To trigger a review, create an event: if you qualify, LinkedIn Live appears in the Event format dropdown. You also need a third-party streaming tool, because you cannot stream directly from LinkedIn.

Creator analytics

All LinkedIn members have creator analytics. Go to your profile, scroll to the Analytics section and click Show all analytics. Post impressions opens combined post analytics (impressions or engagements over a date range you pick, plus top posts). Total followers opens audience analytics (follower growth and demographics such as job title, industry and location). Both export to an .XLSX file. LinkedIn notes that the numbers are estimates. Our LinkedIn analytics guide explains how to read them.

Is there Creator Mode for company pages?

Creator Mode was a setting for personal profiles. LinkedIn Pages have their own custom call-to-action button with a URL of your choice, set in the Buttons tab of Edit page by a super admin. LinkedIn says that without a Premium Company Page subscription, the button only shows when members click More.

What the change means if you are growing an audience

Creator Mode was mostly a bundle of settings, and you can rebuild it in about ten minutes:

• Make Follow your primary button and allow Everyone on LinkedIn to follow you.
• State your topics in your headline and the first lines of About, since profile hashtags are gone. Our free LinkedIn headline generator can help with wording.
• Pin your best posts, a newsletter and one key link in Featured, and add your site under Contact info.
• Start a newsletter if you publish longer pieces regularly.

After that, what grows an audience is the same as before: useful posts on a steady schedule. See how often to post on LinkedIn and our guide on how to grow on LinkedIn. If you pay for Premium All-in-One, LinkedIn also offers auto-invites, which send follow invitations to people who engaged with your posts in the past 30 days or to relevant new members.

Keep a steady posting rhythm with PinBoostr

A Follow-first profile only pays off if new followers keep seeing new posts. PinBoostr schedules LinkedIn posts for personal profiles through LinkedIn's official API, with weekly posting-time slots, a calendar and a carousel studio for PDF carousels. Nothing posts until you approve it, and PinBoostr does not show LinkedIn analytics, so keep using LinkedIn's creator analytics for results. See the LinkedIn scheduling tool.

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