What does a LinkedIn Prison look like?

Let me paint a picture for you...

A dark, dimly lit digital cell is enveloped with a dense fog of restrictions. The air feels heavy with the silence of muted profiles. A once bustling exchange of professional discourse is now stifled under the weight of punitive measures.

Digital walls, cold and unyielding, are lined with rows of suspended accounts, their avatars grayed out, a stark contrast to the dynamic headshots that once adorned the network. The faint echo of missed opportunities and networking requests that would never be answered lingers.

In the corner, an occasional flicker of a notification light, now a rare occurrence, cast fleeting shadows of past engagements. The distant sound of a severed connection adds to the eerie stillness, a chilling testament to the isolation and lost potential filling my virtual confinement.

Bleak right?

Trust me, you don't want to be here.

If you're seeing this... Congratulations... you're either one of the special few, or they've let me out of LinkedIn prison.

So what happened, and how did I get here?

Starting in 2024, I committed to put more effort into my LinkedIn network.

It all started so well. Posting regularly / getting engagement / participating in conversations / reaching out / and seeing growth in my followers.

And because I like data, I started setting little "micro" goals.

• Get more impressions than followers = check
• Post seven times in a week = check
• Add 10% more followers in a month = check
• Start a newsletter = check

As I said earlier, things were progressing well.

And then, I set a goal to get 7000 impressions in 7 days. When I was posting regularly, on some days I generated almost 1000 impressions a day. To reach 7000 I just needed to average 1000 impressions a day. How hard could that be?

OK, maybe it was a "stretch goal", but I was getting close. On three consecutive days, I was between 6800 and 6900 impressions. I was focused and motivated.

But like clockwork, each day at 7 pm, it would drop the last day, and I'd need to find another 1000ish impressions.

• I tried posting multiple times a day - it didn't help.
• I tried more provocative images and headlines - it didn't help.
• I tried sharing my posts with other groups - it didn't help.

No matter what I did, I couldn't break that 7000 impressions threshold.

I started wondering if some impression ceiling or distribution curve was preventing me from succeeding. I couldn't figure it out.

To reach my goal, I started @ mentioning all the people I thought would find my post interesting in the comments section of my posts.

IE: If the post were about accountants, I'd check all my followers, find all the accountants, and @mention them in the comments. I was certain that would help.

IT DIDN'T.

What did start to happen was that my impressions started dropping. Each day, my impressions would be fewer. Instead of getting a thousand impressions, I was getting a couple hundred.

I WAS DISAPPOINTED.

I was generating some great content that was funny, relevant, and valuable, but it wasn't getting seen. It felt like I was somehow being punished - but I didn't know why.

SO I INVESTIGATED.

As it turns out, I'm in a bit of a LinkedIn jail.

I inadvertently broke a couple of rules that I, up till now, didn't know about.

What did I do?

Well, remember me saying I started posting multiple times a day?

Turns out that's a negative signal to LinkedIn.

If you are posting multiple times a day, your content is probably not being seen.?And can you really post quality content all day long? Try not to post more than once per day.?

And remember me discussing that @mention strategy?

It's also seen as bad behaviour on LinkedIn. Who knew?

Only @mention someone who is relevant to the post and will also be happy to be tagged. Putting out a post that YOU want to be seen and then tagging dozens of people in hopes they will react is a very poor strategy. Not only will LinkedIn penalize you once these people fail to respond, but your network will also not be pleased with you for tagging them.

Well, ain't that a kick in the head?

So, what is the lesson to learn here?

• Read the manual? I can't do that - I'm genetically predisposed not to. :-)
• Don't be ambitious? That doesn't seem right either.
• Maybe, don't force things? That seems to be the right answer here. Be authentic. Be organic. Be real in your actions. If your action is only to benefit you, it's probably the wrong kind of action.

Oh well, I guess it's time to change my newsletter tagline from "Insights from 30 years of mistakes" to "Insights from 31 years of making mistakes."

I wonder what the next lesson I learn the hard way will be?