Is Your LinkedIn Account Restricted or in Danger of Being Shut Down? Here’s Why!

 

I have been facilitating social media marketing services for businesses in all industries for the past 10 years. Since the majority of my clients are in a professionally regulated industry, i.e.. Real Estate, Mortgage, Finance, Title Insurance, Insurance, Banking, Medical etc. The central focus in our business is regulatory compliance when presenting our client’s image on any social media platform.

Several things in the industry social media managers need to be aware of is the ever-changing legalities and changes on these platforms.

The next thing we know is that about 80% of everything you hear from people who do not know what they are doing is either untrue or ignorance.

I am not going to cover each platform in one long post because of the length of the information. I will be doing a single post for each topic on each platform.

First of all I want to tell you that if you have hired a social media manager and they have requested any login from you on any platform you should immediately fire them.

Let’s start with LinkedIn. I posted a comment in a Facebook group one time and had 20 women tell me (10 years’ experience) that I did not know what I was talking about and they were going to continue logging in and out of the client’s LinkedIn accounts. LinkedIn permanently shuts down accounts that violate their security and access regulations. A seasoned social media manager would never need your LinkedIn login, nor would the use a 3rd party API posting tool to manage your posting. They simply don’t know how to do it legally. Now that I have been called out for not knowing what I am doing let’s start with the fact directly from LinkedIn.

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Fact 1 – It is against LinkedIn’s TOS (Terms of Service) to give your login credentials out to anyone and not keep it confidential. In the user agreement you agree to keep it a secret. Did you read that?

User Agreement Policy: LinkedIn Section 2.2 2020- Agreement

“You will keep your password a secret. You will not share an account with anyone else and will follow our rules and the law.” You agree to: (1) use a strong password and keep it confidential;…”

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Fact 2 – Most all use of software and 3rd party tools are a violation. Any member who uses tools for such purposes is in violation of the User Agreement. This means they risk having their accounts being restricted or shut down. 

Prohibited Software and Extensions Read This Policy 

“……..We don’t permit the use of any third party software, including “crawlers”, bots, browser plug-ins, or browser extensions (also called “add-ons”), that scrapes, modifies the appearance of, or automates activity on LinkedIn’s website.  Such tools violate the User Agreement, including, but not limited to, many of the “Don’ts” listed in Section 8.2:

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NOW….

The result of violating terms of service.

Typically, you will go to login and get a huge white page with a message giving you a reason. It may or may not be accurate, however, it is important to follow any instruction given to you to recover your account.

Sometimes you will be prompted to identify yourself by uploading the front and back of an approved ID. Other messages may say your account is simply shut down and there is nothing you can do.

After you appeal to the platform and pour out your heart telling them you have no idea why your account is restricted you may receive this reply.

“Due to multiple User Agreement violations and the nature of the inappropriate content associated with these violations, this account has been permanently restricted.”

Just imagine And the potential opportunity loss for business is an issue that your company may have to face if you are getting business leads from LinkedIn. Here is information from LinkedIn about Account/Content Restriction

Repeating Content

A great social media marketing strategy can absolutely include refreshing and repurposing content, but duplicating the exact same message is generally discouraged, and most social networks have a section in their guidelines or terms of service about what constitutes as spam.

We have built our scheduling based on advice and from each social network that we’re partnered with, and will always strive to maintain strong relationships with each one, by adhering to their policies and building a platform that supports the overall goals of the social media ecosystem.

What are the exact limitations when it comes to repeating the same content?

Each post in your Queue will only be published once. If you need to share a post multiple times, then you would need to create it multiple times within the Queue. However, there are some limitations in terms of duplicating the same content. The exact limitations are:

You will not be able to create the exact same post more than once within a one-week period. (BUFFER)

LinkedIn put together a list of approved 3rd party community tools that are approved and have been evaluated by LinkedIn. One of those is Buffer.

Buffer has restrictions about reusing the same content more than one time per week. This is to abide by LinkedIn’s policies.

( https://faq.buffer.com/article/283-publish-guidance-on-repeating-posts)

As for us!

We manage a huge number of accounts and we never ask client’s for LinkedIn credentials and we do not have a 3rd party sites that “Automates activity on website.” (LinkedIn)

I rest my case on this matter right here. I do not need to include personal opinion or the ipinions of others.

My final words on this is Govern Yourself Accordingly.

Beware of a social media manager asking for your login credentials on any platform. We manage Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and more, and we NEVER request login credential from people.

Thank you.
Kind Regards,
Shelley Costello

#1 Amazon International Best-Selling Author
Fox News Social Media Strategist
Professional Social Media Strategist and Manager
(407) 308-0184
CEO / President Creative Web Concepts USA

SKYPE ID:  shelley.costello

shelleyacostello@gmail.com
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