LinkedIn: 30,000 connections and that's your lot...

Does LinkedIn limit your connections? Yes. 30,000, that's your lot. It's now official. "You may be our best customers but we don't want you to use our service anymore......." that's effectively what LinkedIn have just told their top 1% of customers.

LinkedIn have confirmed that 30,000 connections is your limit. There were always rumours before but now myself and several fellow 30,000+ connected profiles on LinkedIn have all been told the same thing, it's 30,000 connections only.

It was a bit like pulling teeth but finally they have admitted the number. Over the last year LinkedIn have said I have reached my limit but I would complain and they would remove my restriction. Not this time. 

As you can see below i have over 2,500 pending invitations that I cannot accept. I wrote a blog about it when it reached 999.

There used to be workaround, a loop hole, it was Sales Navigator.  Because that platform does not appear to be connected to LinkedIn it allowed me to keep growing my connections even though my LinkedIn.com was capped. Now they have cottoned onto this and stopped my growing my connections on Sales Navigator too.

I have dozens of messages from LinkedIn customer support over the past year saying that there was a limit and also saying that they wouldn't tell me what it was. I had many more saying that if i reduced my connections I could grow again. But when I asked they wouldn't guarantee it. I tried it and it didn't work.

I asked again and finally after a year's worth of asking they confirmed that I had to reduce my 65,000 connections (not followers - more about them in a minute) to below 30,000 to grow. Something clearly I am not going to do.

They say 30,000 is the limit if that is so how come my connections are 65,000?

I also asked why other people seemed to have more than i did and they came back every time with the usual "we can't tell you, everyone is the same" which clearly wasn't true. Some people have more than me, why aren't they stopped from growing their network? Maybe they are now, but they weren't. Is everyone stopped now?

Bizarrely even thought I have a "connection limit" apparently my connections keep growing as a result of my connection requests I have sent out previously. See below.

I asked LinkedIn about this too and they they gave strange answers which made no sense. They said there was a limit but they wouldn't tell me what it was (until this week) and that I couldn't go beyond that limit. That clearly isn't true as my number keeps growing....as you can clearly see below.

Since saying to me a couple of weeks ago that I had reached my limit I have added 1,000 connections through previous requests I have sent out.....so the limit is not really the limit is it LinkedIn? So why say that there is a limit when it's a forced one from LinkedIn itself? Why not just admit that? 

I wrote a blog before about having 999 problems but a bitch sure wasn't one of them.  It was all about having 999 connection requests that I couldn't say yes to. That number is now 2,500. Where does this leave those people? Why can't I connect? Why do LinkedIn Influencers, like Richard Branson and Arne Sorenson, who do not pay for this service like I do, have more than 30,000 connections and many more followers?

It does appear that although connections are limited to 30,000 followers are unlimited. So that's what I have to do now.  I can follow you and you can follow me. I can no longer connect unless you already have an outstanding connecting request, I can't send and I can't accept.

Will all this mean less usage? I, like many others, can no longer connect and add to our connections. This will mean less usage. Quite why LinkedIn want to limit the usage of the LinkedIn Power Profiles like me who use the service the most is beyond me.

Why have a limit? Why 30,000? As more and more people reach this, where does this leave LinkedIn's famous strapline of "keep growing your network"....I would like to but I  now cannot.

At the same time as the LinkedIn share price is low and earnings are under pressure they have now forced their best customers to not doing the one thing they have been telling us to do, grow our network. If your platform can't cope LinkedIn, admit it, if it can't cope, build it so that it can cope.

Is this why they have sold out to Microsoft? If you read LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner's blog it would appear so:

Is this combined with a clampdown on people with 30,000 connections and those that have been using Sales Navigator like me to get around it an admittance that their platform couldn't cope? If they are really going to a billion Microsoft users they will need a more substantial platform and they will also need to increase the 30,000 limit.

The Financial Times coverage of the takeover also focused on the fact that although LinkedIn has 440 million members only 100 million actually active each month. This is the usual metric that other social platforms like facebook and twitter measure their user base on so really LinkedIn do the same and stop talking about 440 million and starting talking us 100 million who are actually active especially the top 1% like me who use it every waking hour!

Otherwise it's like saying to your top tier of credit card users or hotel guests or airline customers that you no longer want them to spend money with you. No don't travel with us, no don't stay at our hotel or visit our leisure venue or restaurant or buy our product or spend on our card or fly with us.....who would do that? Well that's what LinkedIn have effectively now said. Stop spending with us.

As everyone knows in these industries and in fact man many others such as FMCG and leisure. 10% of customers generate 90% of  revenues. So LinkedIn effectively want to limit the top 10%, (probaly more like 1% actually like me), usage and activities on LinkedIn, what a bizarre way to treat your best customers.