Having multiple LinkedIn accounts might be beneficial.
But, the problem is LinkedIn won’t allow it.
So, what do you do when you really need to access more than one LinkedIn account?
This multiple LinkedIn accounts guide should answer most of your pressing questions when it comes to managing multiple LinkedIn accounts, strategizing your approach, and using it for conversion.
(Also, it will help you stay out of trouble!)
Can I Use Multiple LinkedIn Accounts?
The short answer is: “no, but…”
If LinkedIn catches you with two personal accounts with the same name and profile photo, there’s a risk that you can be taken down.
In fact, people on the platform that notice you have two accounts can report you to LinkedIn.
The reasoning behind it is mainly twofold. LinkedIn wants to protect everyone from people impersonating them. If you had two personal accounts, there may be a likelihood that you could be abusing your LinkedIn terms of usage.
Think about it.
Do ordinary people on LinkedIn use two accounts?
Since there would be no use for more than one when job seeking, lead generation, or just engaging on the platform, they don’t.
LinkedIn is strict with this, stating that:
To use the Services, you agree that: (1) you must be the “Minimum Age”(described below) or older; (2) you will only have one LinkedIn account, which must be in your real name; and (3) you are not already restricted by LinkedIn from using the Services. Creating an account with false information is a violation of our terms, including accounts registered on behalf of others or persons under the age of 16.
Obligations 2., Service Eligibility 2.1, User Agreement | LinkedIn
Why Do People Want More Than One Similar Account?
A bunch of reasons, namely:
- Anonymity to stalk or snoop around other accounts without that account owner knowing their account is being visited. Many marketers who do competitor research do this, but it doesn’t matter since all your competitors know for a fact that checking each other is mutual in the industry.
- You are defeating the maximum number of 30,000 connections on LinkedIn. However, having 30,000 connections would mean you’re a LinkedIn influencer, and you should be using LinkedIn creator mode to gather followers instead of connections. There is a cap to LinkedIn’s maximum number of followers.
Here’s our LinkedIn Creator Mode Guide for you to check out!
- You create dummy accounts to post spam or create hype for another person. There are a lot of organic ways to get real traffic coming through, and they make for better conversions. Hype accounts damage accurate statistics from coming in and don’t more sales. On the other hand, if you’re spamming, you know that’s not going to do you any good.
Are You Allowed to Manage an Account for Someone Else?
According to LinkedIn Professional Community Policies, you’re technically not allowed to manage an account for someone else.
Do not use or attempt to use another person’s LinkedIn account or create a member profile for anyone other than yourself. And do not share your LinkedIn account with anyone else.
LinkedIn Professional Community Policies
However, what happens if the person gives you explicit consent to manage their LinkedIn account?
That’s a question we haven’t been able to find an answer to from LinkedIn’s site.
Here’s what we do know.
We know a lot of people managing accounts for someone else with the account owner’s explicit consent – they haven’t run into problems as far as we know.
If you do need to run an account for someone else, remember these things:
- Don’t do anything fishy that will get the account suspended
- Respect that person’s privacy
- Don’t bring unnecessary attention to yourself from LinkedIn
- Be alert
The Super “Legal” Way of Having More Than One Account on LinkedIn (And, Its Benefits)
Having more than one account persona is excellent because it allows you to do a lot of things with your marketing outreach – especially if you manage multiple brands.
First of all, it gives you access to different platforms for unique audiences, meaning you can change your voice easily to resonate more with your followers.
It also helps keep things organized as you can easily switch between organically segmented audiences.
Lastly, it allows you some legroom to experiment. If you mess up an experiment on one persona, you can make sure you don’t repeat the same mistake on the other one. You can even run an A/B test on the different accounts you manage for immediate results.
And, you know, at BAMF, we all love experiments like this.
Before you brand as people who want to disregard LinkedIn’s guidelines, there’s a perfectly “legal” way to do this using company or brand pages.
It’s assumed that your brand page will have its own voice, so it’s an opportunity to get around LinkedIn’s limitations.
You will still need to have a personal LinkedIn account to create any brand or company accounts.
Here’s what.
We’ve found that people like engaging more with personal accounts than brand accounts. So keep in mind when running experiments. You can use two different brand accounts for your A/B testing, but using a personal account and a company account in one test introduces a bias.
Managing Multiple LinkedIn Accounts
Disclaimer: This was written for informative purposes only. Always stick to LinkedIn’s User Agreement and Professional Community Policies, and don’t do anything that will get you in trouble!
There are a lot of software solutions and providers that will help you manage multiple accounts.
For instance, Expandi.io and LinkedIn Helper 2 both have options for you to add multiple accounts and manage them safely using their custom functionality.
If you want to do it manually, you can as well.
This means logging into a different LinkedIn account each time you want to access or modify something.
You need to make sure that you have permission from the owner of the LinkedIn account before you attempt to do anything to prevent problems from arising in the future.
Here are a couple of notes you have to keep in mind when managing multiple accounts:
Location
LinkedIn will find it weird if you have your account logged into multiple locations simultaneously. This is especially true if you’re managing an account for someone halfway across the world. There will be instances where LinkedIn can and will flag you for this. There are two possible workarounds for this:
a) make sure that you’re in the exact general location as the owner of the account, or
b) use a good VPN service that puts you in the general location of the owner.
Simultaneous Usage
Don’t use the LinkedIn account simultaneously in two different locations, even if you’re in the same place. LinkedIn knows that you can’t possibly be posting on your account from three other devices at the same time and might identify this as a security breach on your behalf.
Decide on a schedule with the owner – or account handler – when both of you can access the account. This makes things less suspicious.
By keeping these two points in mind, you can prevent problems on the LinkedIn accounts you manage or have other people manage.
You don’t want to end up in LinkedIn jail; if you do, we have resources to get out of it, but it is such a hassle.
Takeaways
If you manage multiple LinkedIn accounts or have your LinkedIn account managed by someone else, this should answer most of your questions.
Managing multiple LinkedIn accounts isn’t necessarily encouraged, but there are workarounds if you have to do so.
What’s critical is that you stay safe by not doing anything that will alert the LinkedIn algorithm.
Pay attention to where you access and simultaneous usage of the account.
Stay safe while growing!
