Banned From LinkedIn? It Happened to Us. Here's What to Watch Out For...

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:10.160 welcome back to BBB growth. I'm dan Sanchez with Sweet Fish Media and today 3 00:00:10.170 --> 00:00:14.930 I'm going to be talking about linkedin or getting banned or suspended from 4 00:00:14.930 --> 00:00:20.180 linkedin because it just happened to us that Sweet Fish Media recently and I 5 00:00:20.180 --> 00:00:24.700 need to make an episode about it to kind of warn people and tell you what 6 00:00:24.700 --> 00:00:29.830 we've learned about the possibility of getting banned from linkedin. So this 7 00:00:29.840 --> 00:00:32.630 applies to anybody on Lincoln who's spending a good amount of time on 8 00:00:32.630 --> 00:00:36.540 linkedin if you're the kind of person that hardly ever checks into linkedin 9 00:00:36.540 --> 00:00:40.080 and this shouldn't bother you because well, you're not going to do any of the 10 00:00:40.080 --> 00:00:43.770 activities that would get you banned from linkedin. And while I'm gonna be 11 00:00:43.770 --> 00:00:48.220 going over some of the practical lessons we've learned along the way, 12 00:00:48.230 --> 00:00:52.030 let me give you some back story, let me give you a lesson or let me tell you 13 00:00:52.030 --> 00:00:57.200 what happened to us. This all started a week ago when our social media 14 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:02.360 specialist Emily de Brito, who manages a lot of Arlington stuff for our pages. 15 00:01:02.360 --> 00:01:06.180 She writes a lot of the content for our employee Evangelist program, which 16 00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:09.770 we've talked about here on GDP growth. Um, and generally the kind of person 17 00:01:09.770 --> 00:01:14.160 behind the scenes actually running a lot of our linkedin stuff she posts for 18 00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:17.720 me, sometimes she comments, I'm constantly tagging her and stuff when I 19 00:01:17.720 --> 00:01:20.170 think like, oh, that was a good comment that I just wrote, turned that into a 20 00:01:20.170 --> 00:01:23.120 post, you know, things like that. But of course she's on, they're doing it 21 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:28.040 herself, she's Sweet Fish evangelist herself because while she writes for 22 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:31.130 others. She also writes for herself to kind of get a taste of working with 23 00:01:31.130 --> 00:01:36.130 linkedin hands on as herself to be able to better help others. But in the 24 00:01:36.130 --> 00:01:38.520 process she got suspended 25 00:01:39.940 --> 00:01:45.120 And she got suspended for making too many connections, right? She's actually 26 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:48.130 only taking the advice that I've given her to connect with more people. She's 27 00:01:48.130 --> 00:01:51.170 probably only had 400 connections when she started. And I was like, Hey, yeah, 28 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:54.300 like connect with a good handful of people every day. But apparently she 29 00:01:54.300 --> 00:01:58.310 took that too far and how far it's hard to tell because it's like not one of 30 00:01:58.310 --> 00:02:02.640 those things that you measure. I think linkedin generally gives you about 100 31 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:08.229 connection requests a week. And I think as long as you spread it out throughout 32 00:02:08.229 --> 00:02:11.540 the week, you'll be okay. But if you try to connect with too many people all 33 00:02:11.540 --> 00:02:16.710 at once, like Emily did, you'll probably get suspended. And suspension 34 00:02:16.710 --> 00:02:19.470 is almost like a temporary ban. You cannot log into linkedin, but your 35 00:02:19.470 --> 00:02:22.470 account doesn't go anywhere. People could still mention you and to comment 36 00:02:22.470 --> 00:02:26.140 and damu and all that kind of stuff. You just can't log in. You can't post, 37 00:02:26.140 --> 00:02:30.450 you can't comment for a couple of days. It's not a huge deal, but you should be 38 00:02:30.450 --> 00:02:34.390 concerned because I'm hearing about this happening all the time Now. In 39 00:02:34.390 --> 00:02:41.950 fact, I did a poll of my own Lincoln crew Got about 500, maybe 570 votes. 40 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:45.100 And I just asked them a simple question how many of you have been banned or 41 00:02:45.100 --> 00:02:46.560 suspended, right? 42 00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:49.350 7% said they had. 43 00:02:50.640 --> 00:02:54.650 And while that seems like, well, yeah, but 93% said, they hadn't. you've got 44 00:02:54.650 --> 00:03:00.550 to remember, That's 7% is quite a bit of 500. That's That's like 40 people 45 00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:05.720 Who have been suspended out of the 500. That's that's a good chunk. That's a 46 00:03:05.720 --> 00:03:09.480 good amount of people that have been kicked off for something. They probably 47 00:03:09.480 --> 00:03:10.950 didn't deserve to be kicked off for. 48 00:03:12.540 --> 00:03:18.290 So, not long after that she was reinstated. Right? And then out of 49 00:03:18.290 --> 00:03:22.690 nowhere, bam permanently banned. And the only reason she was given is that 50 00:03:22.700 --> 00:03:27.010 it looked like she was doing have that her behavior on linkedin looked like it 51 00:03:27.010 --> 00:03:32.160 had been over automated or just automated in general. We tracked it 52 00:03:32.160 --> 00:03:35.750 down to it being viewing too many profiles at once, which has kind of 53 00:03:35.750 --> 00:03:38.740 become known as like a no no on linkedin from those who have been 54 00:03:38.750 --> 00:03:43.310 suspended. That's usually the main case, not connections, but viewing too many 55 00:03:43.320 --> 00:03:48.240 profiles, Which is ridiculous because she was literally just pulling up 50 56 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:52.310 profiles at once to be able to create a good spreadsheet for our own evangelist 57 00:03:52.310 --> 00:03:55.600 program to be able to know who to connect with because sometimes you want 58 00:03:55.600 --> 00:03:58.630 to connect with people who are the thought leaders or influencers in 59 00:03:58.630 --> 00:04:01.770 certain niches. So she was creating a little database for us to be able to do 60 00:04:01.770 --> 00:04:06.170 that. Nothing spammy there Not opening it so that they would know she opened 61 00:04:06.170 --> 00:04:09.950 it, not opening it so she could DM or spam them at all. She was just doing 62 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:14.410 some research. This happens all the time and we do this right. We opened up 63 00:04:14.420 --> 00:04:17.399 50 tabs of people or things and we're doing research. We kind of pulled them 64 00:04:17.399 --> 00:04:21.100 all one at a time, pull them into excel, whatever. She was just doing that as 65 00:04:21.100 --> 00:04:22.660 part of her job. I asked her to 66 00:04:23.740 --> 00:04:29.090 but it got her band and not just kind of banned, permanently banned and it 67 00:04:29.090 --> 00:04:33.310 was an ordeal over a weekend. I'll spare the details, but essentially like 68 00:04:33.320 --> 00:04:36.370 customer service when I talked to her, she she wasn't even allowed to because 69 00:04:36.370 --> 00:04:39.080 she couldn't log back into linked in to talk to them. So she mentioned reached 70 00:04:39.080 --> 00:04:42.830 out on twitter, they didn't help her much there. I pretty much put together 71 00:04:42.830 --> 00:04:46.580 a campaign and made a lot of noise through my profile, got the whole sweet 72 00:04:46.580 --> 00:04:50.160 fish team involved over the weekend and the post went viral and we got, you 73 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:53.860 know, got people's attention. So when a human actually looked at it, she got 74 00:04:53.860 --> 00:04:58.590 reinstated with some warnings. But I don't want that to happen to you. I 75 00:04:58.590 --> 00:05:01.940 don't want that to happen to anybody. Remember a lot of people are getting 76 00:05:01.940 --> 00:05:05.230 suspended and banned from Lincoln right now, not because they're pushing the 77 00:05:05.230 --> 00:05:09.180 edge. Not because they're posting controversial information. Not because 78 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:11.970 they're even spamming. Then we know there's lots of spam going on on 79 00:05:11.970 --> 00:05:17.200 linkedin but because they're just doing certain behaviors that look to linkedin 80 00:05:17.200 --> 00:05:21.220 at least to the Lincoln algorithms. Like it could be spam. And then when 81 00:05:21.220 --> 00:05:26.290 humans review it it also looks like spam because they're trained to kind of 82 00:05:26.300 --> 00:05:31.700 have yes no answers. They kind of have these really clear set of behaviors to 83 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:34.930 follow themselves and so they just kind of look over it and if it meets the 84 00:05:34.930 --> 00:05:40.660 criteria bam band. So because of that I wanted to share some information with 85 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:45.730 some things that we've learned about why they're trying to do it. What you 86 00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:49.990 can do to try to avoid being banned from linkedin and what my hopes are 87 00:05:49.990 --> 00:05:56.350 going forward. Hey everybody Logan with sweet fish here. If you're a regular 88 00:05:56.350 --> 00:06:00.550 listener of GDP growth you know that I'm one of the co host of the show but 89 00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:04.580 you may not know that I also head up the sales team here is sweet fish. So 90 00:06:04.580 --> 00:06:08.620 for those of you in sales or sales ops I wanted to take a second to share 91 00:06:08.620 --> 00:06:12.760 something that's made us insanely more efficient lately. Our team has been 92 00:06:12.760 --> 00:06:16.590 using lead I. Q. For the past few months. And what used to take us four 93 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:22.440 hours gathering contact data now takes us only one where 75% more efficient 94 00:06:22.450 --> 00:06:26.290 were able to move faster with outbound prospecting and organizing our 95 00:06:26.290 --> 00:06:31.110 campaigns is so much easier than before. I'd highly suggest you guys check out 96 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:36.710 lead I. Q. As well. You can check them out at lead I. Q dot com. That's L E A 97 00:06:36.710 --> 00:06:46.180 D I Q dot com. All right. Let's get back to the show. So why is linked in 98 00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:49.580 doing this Lincoln is trying to cut back on all the spam. If you're on link 99 00:06:49.580 --> 00:06:52.840 too much, you know, you get some spam right? Usually see it in the form of 100 00:06:52.840 --> 00:06:56.470 dems. Sometimes I see it in my comments. You know, you get those dems that are 101 00:06:56.470 --> 00:07:01.880 like, hey, if you're so and so you might be interested in S. C. O. Check 102 00:07:01.880 --> 00:07:05.660 out my free thing or hey, would you be interested in S. C. O. Services? You're 103 00:07:05.660 --> 00:07:10.630 just kind of like, no, not really. It's kind of generic writes copy and paste. 104 00:07:10.630 --> 00:07:14.300 It's probably automatics that came right after you connected except on 105 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:17.370 their connection requests or just came out of the blue from nowhere. And then 106 00:07:17.370 --> 00:07:20.950 usually you go back to the D. M. And there's like five, five of them that 107 00:07:20.950 --> 00:07:23.580 you've already seen already and just ignored. But this is the fifth in the 108 00:07:23.580 --> 00:07:28.980 sequence. They just continue to send the crap. So there's spam happening 109 00:07:28.980 --> 00:07:32.870 everywhere Lincoln knows this and they're trying to keep linked in to be 110 00:07:32.880 --> 00:07:36.690 a great place to show up. They have a good user experience. Their success 111 00:07:36.690 --> 00:07:39.830 depends on it. So they're trying to cut back on the spam. And so they've 112 00:07:39.830 --> 00:07:44.540 created a bunch of algorithms that are looking for things that look spammy. So 113 00:07:44.540 --> 00:07:47.050 if you've ever checked out a link to an automation tool and I've looked at them, 114 00:07:47.050 --> 00:07:49.530 I don't use them, but I've certainly looked at them. You can you can 115 00:07:49.530 --> 00:07:52.120 automate all kinds of things. You can automate messages, you can automate 116 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:55.580 profile views, you can automate comments, shoot, you can target 117 00:07:55.670 --> 00:08:00.130 marketing directors of healthcare companies and just say, hey, go and 118 00:08:00.130 --> 00:08:02.700 follow all these people and then send them a message and go and comment on 119 00:08:02.700 --> 00:08:06.850 some of the most recent posts. It's crazy. It's crazy because if you want 120 00:08:06.850 --> 00:08:09.920 to win on linkedin, you gotta just be relational and social do the hard work. 121 00:08:09.930 --> 00:08:12.880 But lots of people automate it and I know they're seeing successful that 122 00:08:12.880 --> 00:08:16.940 otherwise they wouldn't be doing it if you're one of those people like it's 123 00:08:16.940 --> 00:08:19.750 only gonna work for so long and it's gonna get harder and harder to do it. 124 00:08:19.760 --> 00:08:23.570 So this is a quick message. Start maybe keep doing it for a while but start 125 00:08:23.570 --> 00:08:27.390 doing the real work of getting the most out of linkedin. Probably only have 126 00:08:27.390 --> 00:08:32.220 three years left to really get the most out of Lincoln organically anyway, so 127 00:08:32.230 --> 00:08:36.390 take advantage of it while it's here. So with all the spam going on linkedin 128 00:08:36.400 --> 00:08:40.730 is really trying to cut back on it like I said. So they have the algorithms, 129 00:08:40.730 --> 00:08:45.170 they also have the customer service teams that are being the human touch to 130 00:08:45.170 --> 00:08:48.120 kind of like look over what the algorithms have flagged. But the human 131 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:52.820 teams are also so over processed that they can't really they can only see 132 00:08:52.820 --> 00:08:56.240 what's been shown to them and they don't won't dig deeper. They won't come 133 00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:59.470 out and ask you, they won't talk to you, they'll just take a look at it and 134 00:08:59.470 --> 00:09:05.490 either like ignore what the algorithms suggested or suspend you or ban you if 135 00:09:05.490 --> 00:09:08.690 it's been like a second offense. So there's not a lot of grace here. And 136 00:09:08.690 --> 00:09:11.410 because there's not a lot of customer service for the amount of users on 137 00:09:11.410 --> 00:09:15.710 linkedin, it's hard to get a hold of a human to be able to make your case for 138 00:09:15.710 --> 00:09:19.100 why you should get reinstated. And that's the dangerous part is that 139 00:09:19.100 --> 00:09:23.660 Lincoln will not give you a warning about this, It will just happen. So you 140 00:09:23.660 --> 00:09:26.810 have to know what the parameters are they're looking at in order to keep 141 00:09:26.810 --> 00:09:30.710 your own profile safe and still get the most that you can out of linkedin. So 142 00:09:30.710 --> 00:09:34.990 here's five things that I would recommend to stay safe on linkedin, 143 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:40.040 Keep yourself from getting banned and continue to get the most out of it. 144 00:09:40.050 --> 00:09:43.830 Number one, just don't use automation tools. That's a start, right. That's 145 00:09:43.830 --> 00:09:46.230 what they're looking for and they're trying to cut back on, you can use 146 00:09:46.230 --> 00:09:49.090 automation tools and try to change the parameters so that you don't get caught 147 00:09:49.090 --> 00:09:51.330 but eventually you're gonna get caught. Eventually they're going to get smart 148 00:09:51.330 --> 00:09:55.470 enough to be able to see what's going on. So just drop the automation tools 149 00:09:55.480 --> 00:10:00.210 because people are even getting caught doing it manually. So be careful. The 150 00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:03.180 biggest thing people are getting flagged for is profile views because it 151 00:10:03.180 --> 00:10:06.050 seems really innocent. Like you would like it's not spamming, no one really 152 00:10:06.050 --> 00:10:08.510 knows except for that sends a notification when you open up their 153 00:10:08.510 --> 00:10:12.650 profiled right? Sometimes, especially if they're paying for premium. So be 154 00:10:12.650 --> 00:10:17.100 careful how many you open, especially all at once if you open up like 25 all 155 00:10:17.100 --> 00:10:21.210 in an hour, you should be concerned, slow it down, spread them out over time. 156 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:24.570 Which is a shame because honestly it's good research to be able to pull up and 157 00:10:24.570 --> 00:10:28.950 kind of grab like you are all to create a database for later purposes. You know, 158 00:10:28.950 --> 00:10:32.160 there's lots of reasons why you would do it, but just be careful doing it now, 159 00:10:32.740 --> 00:10:38.080 number two, watch how many connections are sending out? You should still send 160 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:41.720 out connections even though Lincoln says you know, only connect with people. 161 00:10:41.720 --> 00:10:45.620 You know, I'm like, it's a networking app. People want to connect with people 162 00:10:45.620 --> 00:10:49.450 that don't know it's kind of that social media. So I'm still doing it. I 163 00:10:49.450 --> 00:10:54.900 would still encourage you to do it just spread them out. 10 - 20 a day is still 164 00:10:54.900 --> 00:10:57.890 fine and you'll be good. Um I don't know if I would do them all in one 165 00:10:57.890 --> 00:11:00.800 sitting, I might want to spread them out throughout the day, which creates 166 00:11:00.800 --> 00:11:04.090 some work, but that's what I'm doing and it's working out pretty well. You 167 00:11:04.090 --> 00:11:08.280 can't do more than 100 a week, but if you're doing 10-20 a day, spread them 168 00:11:08.280 --> 00:11:13.900 out over seven days, you should be good Number four. If you are suspended. Be 169 00:11:13.910 --> 00:11:18.180 extra careful afterwards. I find that once you've been suspended once and 170 00:11:18.180 --> 00:11:21.770 gotten back on, like the chances of you getting suspended again are higher than 171 00:11:21.770 --> 00:11:24.290 it would have been the first time because now you're kind of like on 172 00:11:24.290 --> 00:11:27.520 alert and your, your profile might get permanently bad. That's what happened 173 00:11:27.520 --> 00:11:30.780 to Emily. Don't let it happen to you. If you do get suspended. Be super 174 00:11:30.780 --> 00:11:34.550 careful, do not send out 10 to 20 connection requests a week. Send out 175 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:37.900 Like I wouldn't be sending out any for a while. I might wait a couple months. 176 00:11:37.910 --> 00:11:41.900 Just let people connect with you post good stuff and don't open up more than 177 00:11:41.900 --> 00:11:47.190 10 profiles in a day or something like that. Just be really careful. Honestly. 178 00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:50.690 It's a little over automated. It's crazy to even think that I have to even 179 00:11:50.690 --> 00:11:58.230 like try to set manual parameters for us to be careful of. But that's just 180 00:11:58.230 --> 00:12:02.030 where we're at right now in Lincoln still so good that it's worth doing and 181 00:12:02.030 --> 00:12:07.580 lastly stay tuned for more updates as this continues to move on. And I assume 182 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:10.810 hopefully linked and will get better at this. So keep an eye open for when 183 00:12:10.810 --> 00:12:13.860 people talk about it. If you see somebody else talking about it, keep an 184 00:12:13.860 --> 00:12:17.120 eye for what they say and how their experience was as good as be something 185 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:20.710 that you want to stay up to date with. Whether linked it becomes more strict 186 00:12:20.710 --> 00:12:24.860 or less strict or becomes better at spotting real automation versus what is 187 00:12:24.860 --> 00:12:29.280 perceived automation. Right? So you need to pay attention in order to 188 00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:33.120 continue to get the most out of linkedin without getting kicked off at 189 00:12:33.120 --> 00:12:35.940 Lincoln because of all the sweet fish got kicked off of Lincoln. It would be 190 00:12:35.940 --> 00:12:39.900 devastating right now Lincoln, certainly our top performing social 191 00:12:39.900 --> 00:12:43.290 channel short form channel, of course BTB growth is our main long form 192 00:12:43.290 --> 00:12:49.010 channel, but even then we promote GDP growth primarily on linked in. So we've 193 00:12:49.010 --> 00:12:52.580 certainly taken note we're training our Evangelist team partly with this 194 00:12:52.580 --> 00:12:56.200 podcast, but also wanted to keep all of us GDP growth informed of what's going 195 00:12:56.200 --> 00:12:56.950 on at linkedin 196 00:13:00.740 --> 00:13:06.510 is your buyer at VtB marketer. If so, you should think about sponsoring this 197 00:13:06.510 --> 00:13:11.120 podcast. BTB growth gets downloaded over 100 and 30,000 times each month 198 00:13:11.130 --> 00:13:14.210 and our listeners are marketing decision makers. If it sounds 199 00:13:14.210 --> 00:13:21.650 interesting, send Logan and email Logan at sweet fish media dot com. Yeah