Your LinkedIn Account Got Restricted? Let’s Fix It.

Okay, I know it sucks.

It may look bad, but don’t worry, we can get it back in no time at all.

You’re not the first growth hacker to get this, and with a little tweaking, you can get it back in no time.

In this exhaustive guide, I’ll detail the causes of why your LinkedIn account got restricted, ways to get your account back, and how you can prevent this from happening again.

I advise that you read this entire guide.

Now, breathe, and let’s get to work.

Reasons Why Your LinkedIn Account Got Restricted

Now, there are actually plenty of reasons why your account got restricted. Here are five of the main reasons:

1. You’ve sent too many connection requests too fast – LinkedIn knows that you can’t possibly click on that many people that you want to connect with. It isn’t organic.
2. Low acceptance rates – if people aren’t accepting your requests to connect with them, it could be that you’re doing something spammy or that you’re not relevant. It gets you banned and you’ve wasted time targetting the wrong people.
3. Too many ‘I don’t know this person’-s on your invitations – again, this is another issue of LinkedIn realizing that what you’re doing isn’t promoting healthy connections.
4. LinkedIn automation tools – now not every tool is bad, but there are some tools out there that are downright dangerous for you to use. We’ll cover this more extensively in this guide.
5. Spammy profile activity – you’re viewing too many profiles, messaging everyone that you can get your hands on, not being a ‘real’ person with the way you interact with people, etc.

Here’s an excerpt from LinkedIn’s support pages on why you could’ve been restricted:

This is the reason why we insist on creating ideal customer personas, working hard at hyper-specific targeting, and making sure that each message is personalized.

Learn how to create ideal customer personas on LinkedIn in this extensive guide.

It avoids the dangers of being spammy and getting banned on the platform.

Things You Can Do After Getting Restricted

Don’t Create a New Account

Don’t panic.

The last thing you want is to redo every single automation, connect with every single prospect, and confuse every one of your connections with a new account.

Don’t create a new account when you can still recover the account that you have before.

It’s bad for your branding, your image, and LinkedIn won’t like it.

When you create a new account, you now associate two accounts with the same IP address presumably using the same name. Actions like that will make the platform think that you are probably up to no good.

Instead, of being permanently restricted, you might even up getting permanently banned from the platform.

Now that’s something you can’t afford to happen, especially in the middle of grinding for growth.

A lot of people have been freed from LinkedIn jail, so don’t worry about it.

Automation Tools

First things first, put your automation tool away.

We’re not saying to outright delete or cancel your subscription, but there could be a chance that the culprit is your automation tool.

Using automation tools is a violation of LinkedIn’s ToS.

Here’s an excerpt from one of LinkedIn’s support pages.

“We don’t permit the use of any third party software, including “crawlers”, bots, browser plug-ins, or browser extensions (also called “add-ons”), that scrapes, modifies the appearance of, or automates activity…”

There are tools out there that are in violation of LinkedIn ToS.

What you need to do is to disconnect the applications on your computer from LinkedIn and make sure that they’re not accessing the internet doing you more harm than good.

If you have to check Task Manager on Windows or hit CMD+Q on a Mac do it.

If you’re running a web-based or chrome-based tool, make sure it is disconnected, doesn’t have any permissions to access your account, and off. Once you’re done with that, you could also opt to delete it if you want to.

Now look, we didn’t say that your automation tool is the culprit, but at times like this, you want to be as safe as possible and cover all your bases.

Wait

If you followed the previous tips in this section, one of the best things you can do next is to give it a couple of days and then try logging back into LinkedIn.

For a lot of people, this has proven to be an effective way to get back on the platform after a short suspension.

However, if all else fails, you should probably move to the next part.

Contact LinkedIn

It might be a pain to do, but one of the proven ways to have your account suspension reversed is to contact LinkedIn and ask them to help you out.

We know that they make it a little hard to find their contact information, but we’ll include it here to help you out.

There’s a contact form here that you can use, and here’s what you need to do:

• Tell them what happened
• You don’t have to mention the tools you’re using, they probably already know you’re using tools, if you tell them or not, it doesn’t make a difference.
• Ask them why your account was restricted
• Ask them what you can do to recover the account.
• Tell them what happened
• You don’t have to mention the tools you’re using, they probably already know you’re using tools, if you tell them or not, it doesn’t make a difference.
• Ask them why your account was restricted
• Ask them what you can do to recover the account.

Now usually you can get the account back, but there’s a chance they won’t reply, so you can try again in a month or two – yes, I know that sucks.

Also, note that LinkedIn might ask for some form of identification like a photo ID.

Must Read: What to Do When You Get Your Account Back

If you got your account back, congratulations!

I’m really proud of you for being patient.

Now, this is what we’re going to do to make sure that this never, ever happens again.

Warm Up That LinkedIn Account From Scratch

Remember all that stuff you did when your account was new?

Try to do that all over again.

Pretend that you’re using a new account and stick with these tips for the first couple of weeks or so.

• Keep your daily connection requests minimal, you want to start with something that’s less than five on your first or second day, and gradually pick up the pace. It has to be organic.
• Try to make sure that the people that you connect with are people that you know to a degree. You want to increase the number of “successful connections” that you make to tell LinkedIn that you’re a likable and real person.
• Start deleting your old pending LinkedIn connection requests. (Please don’t use a tool to do this, just take some time.)
• It’s probably time for you to evaluate the outreach that you’re doing using LinkedIn. We suggest dropping general campaigns and opting for more targeted ones that are personalized with messaging that resonates with your prospects.

Do this for at least a month and you can get back to normal prospecting.

By treating your account as if it was new, you can show LinkedIn that everything that you do on their platform is organic.

Don’t Go Back to Your Old LinkedIn Tools

Yes, we know they may not be the culprit.

But, we need to rule them out especially since there’s a significant chance that they could have done your account some damage.

What you should do is to stop using LinkedIn automation tools for a while.

You want to get on LinkedIn’s good side.

Remember, you’re still making amends for what happened before.

Before we end this exhaustive guide, I’ll give you some tips on some tools that you should consider after the restriction on LinkedIn.

How to Make Sure You Never Get Your Account Restricted

This section isn’t just for people who previously got restricted, but for almost every growth hacker out there.

If you’ve engaged in spammy activity at one point in your LinkedIn journey there could be a chance that your account might be flagged.

You want to avoid turning that into a suspension.

So here are a couple of things that you can do to prevent being restricted or to follow after a restriction.

Use the Right LinkedIn Tools

Not all tools are created equal.

And, yes, some tools are just really, really bad.

If you feel like a tool is being spammy, it probably is very spammy.

But, there are tools that are worth giving a shot.

There are two types of tools:

• Chrome-based tools – these are tools that live in your Chrome browser, they only work when you activate them, but they do come with some downsides. They use your browser cache so it leaves traces that LinkedIn can sniff out. Another problem is the lack of dedicated IPs, so some actions might bounce you around different addresses, making you appear suspicious. And, finally, they don’t have many sophisticated features that you can use. You can use them, but only sparingly.
• Cloud-based tools – these tools are hosted by their providers and they live on the internet. They offer a variety of sophisticated features that you can use and are usually harder for LinkedIn to detect because they’re not front end (unlike browser tools.) Another thing we like about them is the advanced behavioral features that they have like working times and limits, plus their dedicated IPs for consistent log in information.

Stop Being Spammy

Just like tools, if you think it’s a little spammy, you’re probably a lot spammy.

You don’t have to run a campaign 24/7 on the platform, it just doesn’t seem organic for you to do so, and it’s a waste of resources.

The trick to stopping spammy behavior is to create personalized campaigns that cater to the specific needs of targeted demographics.

When you do this you avoid having to use a scattered approach that doesn’t result in any good leads, wastes your time and effort, and gets your account flagged by the platform.

Takeaways

If your LinkedIn account got restricted it’s not the end of the world.

Breathe.

You can easily get it back and prevent it from happening again if you follow our guide.

But, here’s the honest truth.

There is no substitute for being relational and taking your time with your campaigns on LinkedIn.

We will always advise that you take your time with your campaigns, target the right people, and create messaging that resonates with your prospects?

Why?

It’s not to avoid getting your account restricted – that’s just another great side effect.

But, it’s rather to make sure that you’re efficiently and effectively running great marketing campaigns.

Want examples of great ones that you can easily run today? Continue reading our posts!