LinkedIn is a great tool for connecting to other professionals in your sector or in a sector you’d like to branch out into. Building up your network has never been easier than sending a connection request. However, there is something you need to be aware of if you’re looking to grow your network more widely. That is that LinkedIn has built-in restrictions for sending invitations. These limits are designed to restrict mass inviting.
LinkedIn state that this is in place to protect their “overall member experience and to ensure that our members-only receive relevant requests”. So, here’s how to ensure you can build a flourishing network whilst staying within LinkedIn’s limits.
The Restrictions
It’s important to note that your network size is capped at 30,000 1st degree connections. From this point, 2nd and 3rd-degree connections will only be able to Follow you. If you break LinkedIn’s restrictions for sending invitations, your account may be temporarily restricted. This means you can no longer send invitations to people.
Sending out a large number of connection requests or receiving too many declines to your requests can be one of the ways this happens.
Another way you can trigger a restriction on your account is if a lot of your invitations have been ignored through either not knowing the person or not introducing yourself in a message. Always send out a message with every connection request to give some context as to why you’d like to connect with that person as they’re much more likely to accept.
Also, it can happen if you’ve been connecting with too many inactive users leading to a large amount pending. It’s important to regularly clear your pending connections to avoid a large build-up. Finally, it could be that your connection requests have been marked as spam by other LinkedIn users. There’s nothing you can do about this, but as previously mentioned, adding a personalised message helps.
Every LinkedIn member is subject to these restrictions for sending invitations, it doesn’t make any difference whether you have a Free or Premium account. There’s no way to increase this limit and once you’re restricted you cannot do anymore inviting until this has been lifted. Most restrictions will automatically be removed within one week.
Received your first restriction? Wait a few hours and then try to connect again. If you’re being faced with multiple restrictions in one day then it’s best to leave it a few days before trying to send any more. Be aware, if you’re restricted from having too many outstanding invitations you will need to wait an entire month before you can begin adding people to your network again.
