Is it viable to use two or more LinkedIn accounts simultaneously when pursuing two careers in two different fields, or when you want to get around the 100 connection requests per week limitation?
What is the point of having multiple accounts on LinkedIn? What are the risks? Are there less risky alternatives to maximize theoutreach and ROI of your prospecting campaigns on the LinkedIn social network? Find out in this practical guide from LeadIn!
2 different accounts on LinkedIn: what’s the point?
Let’s first analyze the two main “legitimate” reasons why you might want to have more than one LinkedIn account.
#1 I have two different professional careers
Human Resources (HR) professionals will tell you: it is recommended that you create several versions of your resume if you are aiming for several professional careers in completely different fields. After all, what could be more logical than theming your resume in the age of specialization and niche expertise?
However, the rules are different on LinkedIn. Microsoft’s social network is designed to help professionals around the world connect, exchange Insights, find job opportunities, inspire each other, and more. But the real value of LinkedIn lies in networking. The size and relevance of your network remain the key factors of success, especially for a prospecting and social selling activity. It’s a “sprawling” and exponential logic: as your network grows, so do the opportunities to find new and relevant connections… which brings us to the drawbacks of creating multiple LinkedIn accounts.
- If you create two separate LinkedIn accounts, you are spreading those connections across two profiles and diluting the strength of your network. In short, you are negating the synergy between the different levels of your social circle… and you are shooting yourself in the foot in terms of business potential if you are prospecting on LinkedIn;
- Managing and feeding your LinkedIn profile takes time and energy, especially if you’re doing Thought Leadership, prospecting or job hunting. Two LinkedIn accounts is simply twice the workload.
- Finally, and perhaps we should have started here… LinkedIn’s rules prohibit the creation of two different profiles for the same person. Of course, creating a second LinkedIn account under a false identity is also prohibited. If your second account is reported, LinkedIn reserves the right to close both of your accounts without notice… is it worth the risk? Recall that LinkedIn has stepped up its hunt for fake profiles since late summer 2022.
If you have two careers, you will need to choose the priority cap. One of your specialties will inevitably have to take precedence over the others on LinkedIn. Use the various free fields to describe your other skills. If this option doesn’t work for you, here’s another: take a step back and talk about the discipline that encompasses both of your specialties instead. If you are an expert in copywriting and digital advertising, you can present yourself as a digital marketing or lead generation specialist. Still not convinced? Here is one last alternative. If you practice your two specialties under two different statutes (two companies for example), you can create two company pages on LinkedIn, one per specialty. Warning: this is a borderline practice that exploits a gray area on LinkedIn.
#2 I want to get around the 100 invitation limit per week
As of March 2021, LinkedIn has decided to drastically limit the number of invitations you can send. The adverb “drastically” is not an exaggeration, as the social network has divided the previous cap by 7, going from 100 connection requests per day to 100 connection requests per week!
Behind this radical decision, there is the will to fight against spammers who use techniques comparable to mass-mailing to enlarge their network but also and especially in an objective of prospecting.
The idea of creating more than one LinkedIn account to get around this 100 invite per week limit is understandable. Each additional account would bring you 100 more invitations per week. Following the mathematical logic, you will need 7 different LinkedIn accounts to get back to the original cap of 100 connection requests per day. The same drawbacks mentioned above apply here as well: it is prohibited by LinkedIn, it is simply unmanageable, and it is counterproductive to the size and relevance of your LinkedIn network. However, there is a solution if you want to activate the full potential of LinkedIn in your marketing campaigns and prospecting efforts…
Multiple LinkedIn accounts: how to manage without risking a ban?
The solution in one sentence: instead of creating fake LinkedIn accounts to maximize your outbound campaigns and get around the limitations imposed by the social network, you should take advantage of the (real) LinkedIn accounts of your employees! Use your own LinkedIn account as well as those of your salespeople and marketers in a rational way to maximize the ROI of your campaigns.
Of course, you will need a powerful tool that is designed to manage several different LinkedIn accounts from a centralized interface. Otherwise, you will have to go to the office of the person concerned, or ask him to do a rigorous and time-consuming reporting… which is not really in favor of an optimized ROI.
Manage multiple LinkedIn accounts like a boss with LeadIn
LeadIn, the first intelligent, 100% unlimited LinkedIn and Email automation software, lets you manage multiple LinkedIn accounts like a boss, without getting tangled up. You will be able to control all the actions of the different registered accounts from a single interface, without any headaches, to increase the impact of your campaigns tenfold without being restricted by the limits imposed by the social network.
This approach also allows you to outsource the management of your company’s LinkedIn accounts to a third party, such as a web agency or a social selling specialist, in complete security.
Finally, LeadIn has a smart inbox that replaces LinkedIn’s laborious interface (messages get lost, you are limited in filters, etc.). You have 360-degree visibility into all discussions initiated by your company’s various LinkedIn accounts so you don’t miss any business opportunities. It is also an interesting feature for coaching and monitoring your employees.
LeadIn allows you to manage multiple accounts from a single “master” account, at no extra cost! Book your demo now!
Multiple LinkedIn accounts: how to avoid having your account restricted, blocked or banned?
As explained above, LinkedIn has been beefing up its hunt for fake accounts for several months. The social network even launched three new features in late October 2022 to better detect and report fake accounts:
- The “about” section has been expanded to better equip users to detect fake accounts. It now includes the date the profile was created, the date the profile was updated, contact information, etc. ;
- Advanced analysis of profile photos generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the time of their upload to LinkedIn. The goal is to successfully identify and remove them before they reach LinkedIn members.
- Now, LinkedIn sends a message to members who receive a message from a profile suspected of being fake or fraudulent.
As you can see, the creation of a fake LinkedIn profile to get around the 100 connections per week limit is now over. This is the best way to have your account restricted, blocked or permanently banned.
Instead of insisting on this ultra-risky approach, opt instead for optimizing your sales prospecting with the right automation tool. The idea here is not to circumvent the limitations of LinkedIn, but rather to respect them and take advantage of other options that will generate business opportunities. By combining LinkedIn and email, LeadIn offers you two powerful and complementary channels to maximize the effectiveness of your prospecting campaign and boost your results.
For example, LeadIn can recognize if the target profile is open to InMails. You can therefore choose the most relevant communication channel between InMail, personal messages and emails, with ease! You maximize the number of prospects approached while minimizing the risks by keeping a natural behavior on LinkedIn.
I want to merge two LinkedIn accounts: how do I do it?
Did you accidentally create two accounts on LinkedIn? Don’t wait for the famous LinkedIn warning message to act. LinkedIn allows you to merge relationships from both LinkedIn accounts so you don’t lose your contacts. Note: this feature is not available on the mobile application. You will have to do the manipulation on computer. Here’s how to do it.
- Log in to your main LinkedIn account from your computer;
- To find your other LinkedIn accounts, simply do a search for your name on LinkedIn. The list of results will contain: your current profile (the one you are logged in to, recognizable by the “You” icon), your duplicate profiles, recognizable by your profile picture or bio, and the profiles of your namesakes, if any.
There are three possible scenarios. Let’s analyze them one by one.
#1 I can connect to both LinkedIn accounts
This is the simplest scenario. Simply log in to the account you wish to keep, click on the “You” icon at the top of the home page. Perform the following manipulation:
- Select “Preferences and Privacy”;
- In “Account Management”, under “Account Preferences”, click on “Change”;
- Enter the email address and password of the account you wish to close, then click “Submit”;
- Enter the password of the account you want to keep to confirm the merging of the accounts, and you’re done. Of course, the relationships of the secondary account are automatically transferred to the main account. This will not be the case for profile content, skill recommendations, recorded articles, etc.
Please note: it is not possible to merge accounts without relationships, nor accounts with more than 30,000 relationships.
#2 I can’t log in to both accounts (forgotten password)
In this case, you will simply have to go through the ” I forgot my password ” procedure on the login screen. Once you have reset your password on the secondary account, you can go through the steps detailed in the first scenario.
#3 I no longer have access to the secondary account login email address
In this case, you will have to go through LinkedIn’s identity verification process.
