LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account

December 8, 2009 By Randy Schrum View Comments

LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account
by Nathan Kievman
Linked Strategies Founder

Ok, the word is out… but many of you may not know about it!
Snipers are very devious. They lay awaiting for you to come walking by and then… WHAM… they got you!

What am I talking about?

I am talking about you losing your account to LinkedIn’s Professionally paid Snipers!
There are countless ways for these snipers (LinkedIn Representatives) to hit your account. I have talked with thousands of people on LinkedIn and occasionally I get emailed about the following ways people have either lost their accounts completely or managed to have their accounts restricted.

I do not claim that this list is all inclusive, so if you know of more, please share and we will add to the list.

5 Ways you can Lose your Account or get a Restricted Account on LinkedIn™

1. Name Field: If you have anything but your name in your “Name” Field, you can get a restricted account or even worse, have your account deleted
a. For example: your name can read “Nathan Kievman” but it cannot read “Nathan Kievman (Toplinked, Invite Me, etc…)”
2. Spam or Abuse: If you are accused of spamming or abuse regardless of its validity – LinkedIn (rumor here) will instantly restrict your account until you email them requesting verification of the reason why (in this case, it’s guilty until proven innocent!)
3. 3 IDK’s: Otherwise known as “I Don’t Know”. If 3 people claim they don’t know you from invitations you send out, you will earn a restricted account or suspended account.

4. Page Views: That’s right, don’t get over zealous on how many profiles you want to view, LinkedIn will suspend your account because they think you are “Phishing” or downloading personal information from the site
5. Non Professional Profile Picture: That’s right guys… in the terms of use, so make sure you aren’t showing too much skin, something inappropriate, or even a business logo as your picture has led to suspended accounts.

That’s the top 5 we know of… please share and add to this list if you know of others.

Read more of Nathans Post at his blog

Filed Under: Linkedin, Social Media Tagged With: Linkedin Account, lose linkedin, Nathan Kievman

About Randy Schrum
Randy Schrum is the Executive Vice President of Sales for DemingHill, a Leading Corporate Social Media Consulting & Marketing Firm. DemingHill is a consortium of the top leaders in each of the core disciplines of Social Media for Corporate Business. Inclusive of Sales, Lead Generation, BD, Marketing, PM, Customer Service and more. Mr. Schrum is also Founder of RandySchrum.com & MyCorporateMedia.com, which features Randy’s Sales & Business thoughts along with special blog contributors. Many Business Executives, Owners, and Entrepreneurs have come to enjoy Randy’s practical thoughts & business insights. Additionally, Mr. Schrum is considered one of the leading authorities on LinkedIn & Twitter as co-manager of the #1 LinkedIn & Twitter Strategies group’s. He is the author of Twitter Strategies, which teaches businesses and Twitter users how to build on their business and professional goals using twitter.

Meredith Collins

RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP</span>
Paul Kenny

5 ways to lose your linkedin account http://bit.ly/5TO4eb</span>
laurathornton

RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP</span>
Veronique Palmer

Also on #4 - I am a co-manager of a LinkedIn group and we get hundreds of requests weekly to join our group. We have strict rules about who gets accepted, so we go into every single profile first to determine if they meet the criteria. So I'd also like to know what the limit is and does LinkedIn then differentiate group managers from the general population?
MatthewKeane

RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP</span>
Khan Ozol

found these great LinkedIn tips that you should know about if you are using LinkedIn - http://bit.ly/5TO4eb</span>
Nate Kievman

Keemia,

No one is really sure on the limit of page views. All I know is I had my team researching on LinkedIn for me and after several hundred page views, that account got suspended. LinkedIn told us it was due to excessive page views! go figure.

Nate K
Marie Aquino

A nice heads up! RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP</span>
Keemia

#4 is an odd one. What's the limit?
My Corporate Media

RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP</span>
Perry van Beek

Great Post! Thank you for sharing this!

Question regarding 4. Page Views. What's too many?
John Kosic

RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP (via @RandySchrum)
Joe Sanchez

RT @RandySchrum RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP < Intrsting!
Joe Sanchez

RT @RandySchrum: RT @tweetmeme LinkedIn™ Snipers: Beware! 5 ways to lose your account : My Corporate Media http://bit.ly/7nzgXP</span>

blog comments powered by Disqus