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For the record I’m a big fan of Linkedin and have enjoyed their services for some time now. But…

In an effort to grow my connections I thought I would selectively invite members from a local Linkedin group that I have been with for a while. Makes sense right? Basic Networking 101. As it turns out this is a real problem for Linkedin.

If 5 people say they don’t know you, Linkedin blacklists you, and you can no longer invite people by name.

In fairness to Linkedin they do tell you to only except invitations from those that you know. What they don’t tell you is if your invitee clicks on “I don’t know this person” you’re penalized severely. If they had clicked the archive button instead there would not have been a problem. No one knows this however.

After three invitees chose “I don’t know you”, unaware, I tried to invite someone new. A message pops up that says I am about to lose my name invite privileges. What the…

After doing some research I find that once blacklisted you have pretty much just two choices:

• Ask the folks to invite you back that clicked “I don’t know you”. Yeah like that’s going to happen. Right?
• Beg Linkedin for mercy.

One of Linkedin’s tag lines is “Discover inside connections when you’re looking for a job or new business opportunity.” Linkedin should add …as long as you already know them, which we understand is not really discovering anything, or we’re going to penalize you. Pretty disappointing.

Copyright © 2009 Chris Lott and Lottspace. All rights reserved.