LinkedIn Is Accidentally Banning Its Content Creators
By: Tim Denning
Tags: LinkedIn, Social Media, Business, Life Lessons, Writing

What to Do If You Get Banned

Getting banned from LinkedIn isn’t fun. It’s serious business. If you post content on LinkedIn then you are likely to experience at least one ban due to faulty automation designed to protect the community. Here’s what I have learned through my four bans that can help you:

Try not to take it personally

LinkedIn’s staff isn’t sitting in a boardroom in San Fran watching every action you take on their platform.

A ban is almost always an accident. And if the ban is legit, then you’ll learn a harsh lesson and probably get a second chance.

Talk nicely to LinkedIn support staff

This strategy is a superpower. Treat LinkedIn support staff ridiculously well. They’re nice people with families just like you. If you explain your position and ask for guidance or coaching then you’ll feel the love.

Empathize with how hard their job must be to police the Wild West and you’ll get a quality outcome. Kindness will never screw up your life.

Follow up via Twitter

Once you are banned from LinkedIn you can’t reach their support staff. LinkedIn support staff can only be contacted when you are logged in. The good news is LinkedIn has support via Twitter. If you message LinkedIn on Twitter and ask for their help then they can advise and follow up for you. They are quick to respond and don’t mess about.

Disable your ego

Your ego wants to say to them “how dare you!” Don’t do it. Your ego lies to you when you’ve been banned from social media. Silence the little devil.

Get a premium account as an insurance policy

A friend of mine suggested I purchase LinkedIn premium. I think his logic is solid. A company will treat you differently if you pay them money.

I had a premium account and let it lapse. Then my employer gave me a LinkedIn Sales Navigator license to help me with my job. When the third ban occurred, my Sales Navigator account was instantly disconnected. I never bothered to reconnect it.

After the fourth ban, I’ve become a LinkedIn paid member once again. Actually, I’m glad I did. I rediscovered LinkedIn Learning courses which I love and have helped me through this apocalyptic year in human history.

Remember social media companies have an almost impossible job

Try being a social media company. It’s bloody hard work. There are bots who pretend to be LinkedIn users. There are fake profiles used to promote porn. There are people who help themselves to multiple accounts.

Then there are the troll groups. I was targeted by one over a year ago. A gentleman from the U.K. had a successful startup. He sold it for millions of dollars to a new owner. On the first day they took over they fired him. He was stuck at home with millions of dollars and nothing to do. He went on LinkedIn and must have seen my ugly duckling face and thought “who’s this big-eared mofo?” The next day he started making up legit lies.

He’d say, “I worked with one of your colleagues and they told me you never went to any homeless shelter.” What he said was a lie but people couldn’t tell who was wrong. Then he started using social proof. He got other people to support his lies and agree with them.

Then the parodies started. He would take my LinkedIn posts and turn them into hilarious stories. I’ll be honest, they were bloody funny. This went on for a number of months. The hate comments overtook the regular comments.

People started to distance themselves from my posts because they had no idea whether the ring leader was telling the truth. The natural reaction when you see a social media post full of hateful comments is to assume there’s tonne of controversy around that person and quietly be on your way. That’s exactly what happened.

Thankfully, the whole situation helped me grow resilience. I became unafraid of critics, when previously, I was sh*t scared of them.

Now imagine being LinkedIn in this situation. How the heck do you work out what someone’s intention is and whether what they’re saying is true? Well, you don’t. You stay away or ban everybody involved.

I don’t envy the difficult jobs social media companies have to allow freedom of speech and protect users from spam and hate speeches.