In light of recent concerns about spamming and bulk requests, LinkedIn has implemented a so-called connection restriction. Even if your outreach efforts have been successful, this might slow down your lead generation. In this piece, we’ll go through some methods to safely increase your LinkedIn network above the article’s recommended maximum of 500 connections.
The number of LinkedIn invites sent and accepted, as well as the network’s usage as a route for acquiring new members, have seen substantial increases in recent months, thanks to the rise in automation tools.
If you’re like most LinkedIn users, you’d instead not get ten marketing and sales invites every day, many of which are poorly written and unqualified.
As a result, LinkedIn has taken drastic action by cutting the number of invites available each week from over 500 down to around 100.
With the hopes of cutting back on sales cold calling and eliminating automated software.
The Best ways to Increase your LinkedIn Connection Limit
We’ve tested all these methods, so you know we’re not just talking the talk. To that end, we’ve done our best to summarise each approach quickly and thoroughly. You should give them a shot (with a few exceptions).
Invite Guests by Using their Email Addresses
This is one of the most straightforward approaches to expanding your LinkedIn network. A little bit of your time and work is all that’s needed. To do this manually, navigate to LinkedIn > Contacts > Add new contacts and click “Upload file.”
Here is where you may unload that CSV file containing all those email addresses you collected while building your contact list with the help of a LinkedIn email finder. LinkedIn will automatically send connection requests to the people whose email addresses you input from the email finder if those addresses match those in their database. LinkedIn’s connection message options are limited to the bland “I wish to welcome you to my network,” so you’ll have to make do with that if you want to utilize the service.
- Pros: It is a straightforward method that may be used to make as many as a thousand contacts every week (the exact amount varies depending on several factors; nonetheless, we tried to send more than that and failed).
- Cons: Connection messages cannot be customized, which may reduce their success rate.
Utilize InMails
We do not recommend using LinkedIn’s premium InMail function since it is overpriced. You may now send messages to users on LinkedIn even if you aren’t already linked to them.
Exactly how much does it cost to use InMail?
The use of email depends on the plan to that you have subscribed
This is the number of InMail message credits you receive every month
- Premium career: 5
- Premium business: 15
- Sales navigator core: 50
- Recruiter Lite: 30
If you are subscribed to a paid plan, you may view your account balance and remaining credits there. To get extra credits when you run out, you can pay for them, says Daniel Foley, Director of Marketing at SEO Stack.
- Pros: You may send and receive unlimited direct messages
- Cons: To put it bluntly, it’s both bothersome and costly. Unsolicited commercial texts in their inboxes turn people off. While it’s admirable that you’re not immediately trying to sell me something, reaching out to me without first requesting to connect raises some red flags.
In any case, it’s one of the available options, and it does help some individuals. Of course, you may put it to use and track your progress. And all cases prioritize domain security and do a DKIM check for avoiding phishing and gain a great reputation.
Relationships Formed via Shared Interests and Activities
Even if it’s impossible to connect with anyone on Facebook anymore, you may still send messages to individuals you know through a common group or event.
Visiting any group’s page, clicking on “members,” and then “view all” will do the trick.
You may send them messages independently of the network.
- Pros: There is no cost. There are no restrictions (but too many consecutive repeated acts may arouse LinkedIn’s concern).
- Cons: A laborious, time-consuming manual procedure. There is no way to make it automatic (yet).
Several Accounts
Creating numerous accounts is always a viable solution. Perhaps you already know that it’s not that easy. In the first place, LinkedIn can often detect if you switch between multiple accounts when conducting business. Second, it takes far less time to ban newly formed accounts. You need to estimate how long it will take to nurture all those new accounts into paying customers, says Robert Smith, Head of Marketing at Psychometric Success.
The choice to “create numerous accounts” is always available. In case you hadn’t figured, it’s not relatively that easy. To start, LinkedIn may sometimes tell whether you’re using several accounts to do business. Second, it takes far less time for a brand-new account to be permanently banned. You need to estimate how long it will take to “warm up” all of those new accounts before you can start enjoying the rewards.
So, moving on to the method’s advantages and disadvantages, we may say the following:
- Pros: There is no cost.
- Cons: It’s inefficient and boring. LinkedIn is particularly anti-bot. Therefore, it will take a long time for a cold account to be ready to enter your prospecting cycle.
Is there anything else that determines the connection limits?
LinkedIn may place more limits on your account for any variety of reasons, or it may give it more unused request allowances every month, so it’s important to keep that in mind while thinking about the current connection limit.
The age and activity of your account are always taken into account. As a result, a newly created account that seems like a bot won’t be allowed to send more than 100, while an older profile may appear more trustworthy to LinkedIn and be granted a bit more. Follow the instructions below to make your account more appealing to the system’s algorithms and comply with all requirements, says Alex Popa, CEO & Founder of Whizcase.
Get your LinkedIn profile tip-top to exceed the maximum number of connections.
Everything you do in terms of prospecting revolves around your LinkedIn profile. Making your LinkedIn profile more presentable and professional might encourage more people to connect with you and open up more doors for you to make new connections.
The foundation of your prospecting efforts is your LinkedIn profile. You may get more introductions and connections on LinkedIn by making your profile more attractive and professional, says Tia Campbell, Director of Marketing at Practice Reasoning Tests.
This is how:
Gerrid Smith, Founder & CEO of Joy Organics says “Make sure to include a high-quality photo of yourself in your profile, an original and professional background image, a compelling synopsis, and a catchy, keyword-filled slogan. Utilize a high-quality photo enhancer to perfect your profile picture, ensuring it’s clear, well-lit, and reflects your professional image.”
- Be sure to: – Detail your relevant education and job experience
- Do not hesitate to highlight any skills that are relevant to the position.
- Include any awards and recognitions you have received.
- You can include voluntary work experience here if you have any.
- Gain credibility and solicit suggestions. Recommendations, which are basically remarks of acknowledgment of your work, can be written on your behalf by those in your network. These can help you stand out from the crowd, attract potential connections, and obtain new jobs.
- Make sure your skills are recognized. You may further increase your profile’s attractiveness to potential clients.
That’s fantastic; your profile is now fully optimized. Your progress toward building your LinkedIn network and surpassing the maximum allowable number of connections may now be celebrated.
Completing your profile in the ways outlined below will enhance the number of connections you are approved of, benefiting you in both lead generation and marketing.
Initiation of an Account
SEO consultant Daniel Foley says “In order to keep from having your connection time restricted or even cut off if you go over the maximum permitted, you must first “warm up” your account. This necessitates a steady increase in connections and requests, beginning with a modest base. Closely fabricates it for you and fully automates the production procedure.”
Make the most of Sales Navigator.
The Sales Navigator subscription plan on LinkedIn includes tools for networking, running campaigns, generating leads, and more. Essential for every business that employs sales managers, says Adam Wood, co-founder of RevenueGeeks.
If you’re interested, you may subscribe to this premium plan monthly or yearly. While expensive, it offers a wide variety of high-quality tools for their asking price (if used correctly).
To help you get the most out of Sales Navigator here is some background information:
- Learn the functions of all of your filters. Clever use of filters allows for effective hyper-targeting of an intended audience.
- Learn how to use the more advanced search options. The most talked-about feature, and rightfully so. It facilitates the identification of specific consumers and the establishment of contact with highly qualified prospects.
- Tag your leads so you can find them easily. Optimize your sales process with LinkedIn tags and quickly respond to their requests.
Don’t forget about your SSI benefits.
LinkedIn provides a valuable indicator known as the Social-selling index. It reveals how well you use information, make contacts, and build solid bonds with others. SSI can help spread the word and give your campaign a boost, says Michael Hess, e-commerce strategy lead at Code Signing Store.
Indicators that it measures are:
- The degree to which you succeed in building a name for yourself in your chosen field by actively participating with your target audience, producing high-quality information, and applying insightful analysis.
- If you’re skilled at forming connections, put that skill to use by networking extensively and establishing solid, long-lasting ties in your field.
- Find your target audience using Sales Navigator’s sophisticated search filters (or a similar tool) to zero in on potential customers. After then, maintain a keen awareness of emerging knowledge and make the most of opportunities to share it with your community; doing so will encourage greater participation, boosting your SSI.
How to avoid LinkedIn restricting your activity
Accounts that exhibit “suspicious” behavior (such as an unusually high rate of connection requests, an exceptionally high rate of content interactions, or other bot-like spam activity), including those belonging to content marketing agencies, will be closely monitored for common exploitative behaviors, have their request and connection limits lowered, or be permanently banned.
Joe Troyer, CEO & Head of Growth at Digital Triggers & ReviewGrower elaborates “If you persist in engaging in behavior that LinkedIn considers suspicious, your request limit will decrease, and the buffer zone between your present limitation and future limits will shrink.”
Using Tools
If you don’t want LinkedIn to flag your connection requests as spam, it’s best to ease into sending more of them each day.
Whether your account is brand new or just getting back on its feet after a ban, it’s best to start slow and gradually ramp up your performance standards and activity level.
Restrictions can put you off your game, and to grow in the field of professionals, there has to be another way around. The ideal software for your rescue is SalesRobot.
To what end does SalesRobot’s Bypassing the limit feature serve you?
Using Salesrobot, you can locate the precise individual you’re looking for on LinkedIn without being limited by the platform’s search parameters.
You may narrow your search results by area, industry, or connection type using Salesrobot, among other things.
If you’re just interested in interacting with a particular sort of individual, this might be a useful filter to apply to your search.
When using Salesrobot, you may invite anyone who isn’t already in your network on LinkedIn and send automated messages to anybody in your network. For more efficient LinkedIn customer acquisition, try this.
Salesrobot is the best option for optimizing your LinkedIn experience.
Additional Salesrobot Capabilities
With Salesrobot, you can automate your LinkedIn activities like the message and invite sending beyond the Search Limit.
If you’re a busy sales professional looking to make the most of your LinkedIn connections, Salesrobot is your tool. You can quickly identify the ideal people to interact with since it is quick, simple, and effective.
Additionally, Salesrobot has many other valuable functions, such as:
- dividing your target audience into smaller groups based on demographics, interests, or the size of their businesses.
- Possibility to insert custom fields in outgoing messages, such as the recipient’s name or firm.
- LinkedIn’s message scheduling feature makes keeping in touch with leads easy even when you’re swamped.
- The capacity to monitor the progress of your LinkedIn outreach initiatives.
- InMail credits on LinkedIn may be used to contact potential clients who aren’t already in your network.
Cost of a Sales Robot:
There are currently a few different pricing tiers available for Salesrobot, with the Advanced plan costing $79/mo./account and the Professional plan costing $179/mo./account.
Additionally, you may negotiate a special price plan with a Salesrobot representative to meet your unique needs.
We think it’s important that you have the option to try a product before committing to it, so here it is. You may test out Salesrobot risk-free for 14 days to ensure it meets your needs.