If you've recently noticed a decline in your LinkedIn follower count, there's a reason for it. As user Sachin Shah revealed, LinkedIn has decided to stop counting "hibernated or restricted accounts" in connection and follower numbers, which may result in the removal of many profiles from your LinkedIn statistics.
LinkedIn explains:
"To better support LinkedIn members and contributors with more reliable engagement and reach insights, we will no longer include restricted and hibernated accounts in the total number of followers and connections listed on a member's profile. Moving forward, we'll regularly update all members' connection and follower counts by removing restricted and hibernated accounts. This is part of our efforts to create a safe, authentic, and transparent experience, reflecting a more accurate view of your audience."
For reference, hibernated accounts are LinkedIn profiles that users have temporarily deactivated, rather than permanently deleting them.
The update is a sensible move, as it provides a more accurate representation of users' connections and followers. It's worth noting that other platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, also include restricted profiles in their stats.
"If restricted or hibernated accounts become active again, they will be re-included in the follower and connection counts they were previously part of. For members who have reached the 30,000 connection limit, accounts that become unrestricted will not be re-added to their audience lists unless they remove current connections."
This logical update from LinkedIn comes as the platform bids farewell to its 59 million Chinese users while shutting down operations in the region. With its total member count already set to decrease by millions, now is the right time for LinkedIn to refine its audience measurement methods. However, it remains unclear whether the platform will exclude hibernated or restricted accounts from its overall member stats.
LinkedIn currently has over 930 million members, which may seem impressive but can be misleading. It's crucial to distinguish between "members" and "active users" – while Instagram has over a billion active users, LinkedIn's active user count is closer to 474 million. Including inactive accounts in this statistic further complicates matters. Hopefully, this update marks the beginning of greater transparency from LinkedIn.
