Since LinkedIn is a professional social network, it’s no surprise people want to expand their contact list as much as possible. More connections mean more opportunities in the job market.
However, having a huge LinkedIn network doesn’t mean anything if your connection list is filled with random people you have no interest in and can’t bring you any value or people who are not even active on LinkedIn.
If this sounds familiar, maybe it’s time to clear out your network.
But how many connections are too many? And more importantly, if you do have too many connections — how do you remove them?
Can you have too many LinkedIn connections?
Once you hit 500+ connections you’ll already have incredible reach and visibility, and when you reach over 5,000 connections you can do some serious growth magic.
However, you can’t endlessly grow your network — LinkedIn only allows you to have up to 30,000 1st-degree connections. If you have more than 30,000 connections, Follow will become the default option on your profile. Note that you can set the Follow option a default even if you have below 30,000 connections.
LinkedIn recommends that you only connect with individuals you know and trust. They also suggest managing your connection list and maintaining only those that bring you the highest relationship value.
When it comes to your LinkedIn profile, quality is more important than quantity. More isn’t always better.
Why you should remove LinkedIn connections
While networking we get connected to a lot of people, after just a few months on LinkedIn you can reach 1000s of connections. Not all of these connections should stay in your network and there are many benefits to removing them.
- Sometimes, you get connected with a person just for the sake of keeping in touch. However, after some time, you realize they don’t add value to your network and you want to remove them.
- Sometimes you realize that a person who engaged with you a lot when you first connected isn’t even active on LinkedIn anymore, being just a ghost connection.
- You might have a lot of LinkedIn connections that don’t engage with your content lowering the reach of your posts. The relevance of your connections is a crucial factor when it comes to pleasing the LinkedIn algorithm.
- You might be having a lot of spammy connections trying to pitch to you all the time or inviting you to events that don’t provide you any value.
So, how do you go about “pruning” your LinkedIn network and getting rid of irrelevant and inactive connections?
LinkedIn provides a feature called “Remove Connections”. When you go to your “Connections” page, you will see a remove button next to each name. By clicking on the remove button, you can remove that connection from your LinkedIn connection list.
However, removing your connections one by one can be a tedious and time-consuming task. Furthermore, LinkedIn does not allow you to view a history of connections you have removed.
Luckily, LeadDelta can help make this process easier and remove multiple LinkedIn connections from your network at once.
How to remove LinkedIn connections in bulk with LeadDelta
LeadDelta is a simple yet highly effective LinkedIn connection manager that allows you to have a clearer, more straightforward overview of your network. It helps you organize your connections with the help of features such as adding custom tags and notes and removing unwanted connections in bulk.
By simply adding the LeadDelta extension to your browser, you will get a CRM-like overview of your entire network. From there, you can easily find old connections that are not active anymore and use LeadDelta tags to mark them as inactive. Once you do that for up to 20 connections, just go and remove connections in bulk.
Let’s take a look at how to delete LinkedIn connections with LeadDelta.
Step-by-step guide
Before you start disconnecting you need to sync your connections.
Go to the top right corner of your LeadDelta and beside your profile picture Click on the green sync button. This will take a few seconds/minutes depending on the last time you synced, but after that, you are all set to start disconnecting.
Once you find connections you want to remove, simply select the checkboxes at the beginning of each row.
Next, click on the ellipsis (⋯) to open the More Actions menu on the right-hand side of the connection row and select the Disconnect/Remove option.
Once you select this option, a popup will appear asking you to confirm the action. You will also be able to choose the right option for you:
- Disconnect on LinkedIn — if you choose this option, connections will stay in your LeadDelta database, but you will no longer be connected on LinkedIn.
- Remove from LeadDelta — choosing this option will only remove connections from your LeadDelta database, but you will still be connected on LinkedIn.
You can also turn on both of the switches if you want selected connections both to be disconnected on LinkedIn and removed from the LeadDelta contact list.
Then click the Confirm button at the bottom left corner of the popup and you will get a notification in the bottom right corner informing you that your action has been successfully performed.
Disconnected connections will be presented differently in the Connections table and automatically labeled with the Disconnected Tag. Note that you cannot remove this tag. This way, you can easily distinguish disconnected contacts from those you are still connected with on LinkedIn.
Note that LinkedIn doesn’t like to see suspicious amounts of actions that might seem unnatural. If you aren’t usually that active on LinkedIn, start slowly and gradually warming up your account.
It’s best to start by removing 20 connections at once, and don’t remove more than 30 a day, LinkedIn might find this action unusual.
You wouldn’t send 200 emails from a new email account, you want to take it slow and gradually increase the number daily.
Benefits of using LeadDelta to remove connections
The main benefits of using LeadDelta to remove LinkedIn connections:
- You can keep their data inside your LeadDelta
- You can filter the exact connections you want to remove
- You will save time not having to remove them manually
- You can remove connections in a bulk instead of 1 by 1
Before disconnecting with LinkedIn connections using LeadDelta, make sure to update connections to get the newest contact information. Then simply remove them from LinkedIn as described above but keep them in your LeadDelta database.
Why should you keep connections data inside LeadDelta?
You might be reluctant to delete your connections altogether with their data, but there’s a reason not to do that. You can use their data in two different ways.
Sometimes it’s just not the right time to be connected to someone (you haven’t talked to them, they aren’t your ICP…), but in the future, you might be looking for a specific person that fits their profile. Luckily if you kept their data inside LeadDelta you will be able to see their information and if they fit the profile you are looking for you can just reconnect with them and start a conversation.
The other huge reason to keep connections inside LeadDelta is that you can export all your connections from LeadDelta and get connection details in CSV format. This feature allows you to remove connections from both LinkedIn and LeadDelta while still preserving relevant information you might need further down the line (sales/marketing campaign, data research…).
What else can you do to better organize your network?
You can start by viewing your connections more efficiently which will let you have more control over your network and who you want to keep in it.
Take advantage of Tagging your LinkedIn connections and organizing them the way you want to. In this way, you will easily find who you need and keep track of your connections.
Lastly, make sure to better organize your LinkedIn inbox and messages. With Tags and Pins, you will never lose an important message and you will always stay on top of your inbox.
Download LeadDelta extension to easily remove LinkedIn connections and organize your network.
