After 30,000 connections, I’m all LinkedOut
Our columnist finds to his horror that he’s reached his limit of LinkedIn connections, with requests building up faster than he can cull.
I am ever so slightly dependent on LinkedIn. It’s a very good source of marketing and branding perspectives and, more importantly, the only realistic way to communicate with my students.
I’ve taught 600 MBA students annually for about 20 years now. Add to that about 2,000 executives on the Mini MBA in Marketing each year, plus the usual collection of marketing randoms I meet along the road and it’s easy to see why I love LinkedIn so much. With one click I can get a message, with another find out who is sending it and why I know them, and with a third reply back efficiently.
So, back in September, it was hardly a surprise to see a build-up of about 50 invites from fellow marketers wanting to connect. But as I casually clicked on them an error message kept appearing. A software glitch or a temporary network issue, I thought. And left it at that.
A few days later the list had grown to 80 and I tried again. Once more my attempts met with failure. And it was then the penny finally dropped: I had reached the end of the road. Thirty thousand connections is the maximum number LinkedIn will allow. Apparently, that limit was set to “keep LinkedIn working smoothly” because “exceedingly large networks impact site reliability and member experience”.