LinkedIn’s 3000 Invitation Limit

I know there are a lot of people that have been on LinkedIn for a while that have run into or are close to running out of invitations so I thought I would give you some advice on how to beat the system.

If you are interested only interested in adding massive numbers of people to your network then many of my tactics won’t work. Though I believe in growing your networking, I don’t think the mass efforts are worth much. Using the right strategies you can get a good size level two network fairly quickly and this will give you the ability to create more direct connections.

Invite Everyone

The first thing you need to do that will keep your network growing is invite every person you engage to connect to you and provide them your email so they can do so. You will find that if you are reasonably on LinkedIn that you can add a couple hundred people a month to your network.

Don’t Use the LinkedIn Invitation, Do a Direct Referral

Not only is the direct referral the most powerful way to invite someone to connect it is very safe – you can’t get IDKed.

To do the indirect invite you find a mutual connection in your network to the person that you wish to invite. Then you send that person a note saying that you would like to get connected to one of their direction connections and ask if they would help you. Additionally, I like to re offer to help them if there is anything I can do.

Then at the bottom of your note to them, you write a note to the person you wish to connect to telling them why you’d like to connect. I suggest you find another reason other than your product or service as that is basically prospecting and will be rejected probably by your connection if not the prospect.

Make it Obvious You’re Open to Connecting

In your profile early in the “Summary,” in the “Contact Settings” area and in the header you can put reference to the fact that you will connect with others. You can also join a number of the open networker groups as these folks search the member list to find other connections.

Summary

You will find that just doing these things will keep your network consistently growing and that you can easily invite as many people as you wish without using up all of your invitations.

In the two years I have been on the system I have only used about 200 invites and my network is just short of 2500 connections.

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