Recommending objects to a user of a social networking system based on implicit interactions between the user and the recommended objects

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• obtaining, by an online system, implicit interactions between a user and one or more objects maintained by the online system, an implicit interaction is an interaction performed by the user with an object with which the user has not established a connection;
• determining one or more soft connections between the user and a plurality of objects to recommend to the user, each soft connection corresponding to one or more implicit interactions performed by the user with an object of the plurality of objects;
• identifying an additional object to recommend to the user based on a similarity between the additional object and objects of the one or more soft connections;
• ranking the plurality of objects and the identified additional object into a ranked list of object to recommend to the user to establish an explicit connection based on ranking signals associated with each of the plurality of objects and the identified additional object;
• and
• selecting at least one of the plurality objects associated with the one or more soft connections and the additional object from the ranked list to recommend to the user.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• obtain implicit interactions between a user and one or more objects maintained by an online system, an implicit interaction is an interaction performed by the user with an object with which the user has not established a connection;
• determine one or more soft connections between the user and a plurality of objects to recommend to the user, each soft connection corresponding to one or more implicit interactions performed by the user with an object of the plurality of objects;
• identify an additional object to recommend to the user based on a similarity between the additional object and objects of the one or more soft connections;
• and
• select at least one of the plurality objects associated with the one or more soft connections and the additional object for recommendation to the user to establish an explicit connection.