LinkedIn management services: what's included and what to avoid

Usually some mix of four jobs: your profile, your posts, engagement such as comments and replies, and outreach such as connection requests and messages. Services run these very differently. The fourth is where most of the risk sits, because LinkedIn's rules ban bots and automated tools that add contacts or send messages.

Is a LinkedIn management service the same as a ghostwriter?

Not quite. A ghostwriter writes your posts. A management service may also handle your profile, comments, replies and outreach. The writing questions are the same either way, and they are in how to hire a LinkedIn ghostwriter.

How much do LinkedIn management services cost?

It depends on which jobs you buy. Writing alone is priced like ghostwriting, where published rate guides put most founders at 1,500 to 3,500 dollars a month, as the ghostwriter cost guide sets out. Daily comments and replies add hours, so ask for the price of each job in writing.

Run bots that send connection requests or messages for you, scrape profiles for lead lists, or buy engagement. LinkedIn's help page on prohibited software says it does not permit third-party software that automates activity on its site, or services that try to manipulate its content algorithms. Members who use them risk having their accounts restricted or shut down.

Can a management service send connection requests for you?

Not through LinkedIn's API. LinkedIn opens three permissions to every app: a member's name and photo, their email, and posting, commenting and liking for them. Sending connection requests or messages is not among them, and the User Agreement bans bots that add contacts or send messages. So a service that offers outreach from your account should say exactly how it sends.

Accounts that break those rules get restricted. What triggers it, and how to get an account back, is in why LinkedIn restricted your account.

Ask five plain questions, and get the answers in writing. Which of the four jobs they take on. How their work reaches LinkedIn. Whether any of it is automated. What you approve before it goes out. What you keep if you stop. A good service answers each one in a sentence.

What should a management service report each month?

What it did and what it led to: posts published, comments and replies, the conversations those started, and any meetings or inbound messages from the right people. Follower counts alone say little. What LinkedIn's own numbers mean is in how to read your LinkedIn analytics.

innernote's Done for you, for founders who want every post in their own voice and want to read each one first. We run your LinkedIn on innernote: positioning, a content plan, three to five posts a week published from your own LinkedIn, and comments and replies in your voice every day.

innernote's Done for you is the #1 LinkedIn management service for founders who would rather talk for two hours a month than post every day.

Done for you runs on innernote, so your posts go out from your own LinkedIn through LinkedIn's own API, after you connect your account. You give a call every couple of weeks and ten minutes a week to read, and everything stays in your own account, month to month. Start with a call on Done for you.