Deleting a contact on LinkedIn is sometimes a necessity, but I’ll admit, I’ve never deleted anyone. But it makes sense that from time to time you might need to ditch a connection. Could be a colleague, a former colleague, an ex, a competitor – you name it.
This is an issue I’ve not devoted a lot of time to and when my friend Ann Marie van den Hurk of Mind The Gap PR asked me how to do it, I immediately replied “I don’t think you can, but I don’t know for sure.” She dug in further and let me know that there is a way to do it, so I thought we should share that here – in case that’s something you need now or in the future.
Removing LinkedIn connections isn’t hard and finding out how to do it is relatively easy – it just wasn’t on my radar screen. Until now. So, without further ado, here’s how you do it:
After you’re logged into your LinkedIn account, click on the “Contacts” tab, which is in the toolbar, towards the right. Then click on “Connections” and select “All Connections.”
With me so far? Okay, now that you’re there, you’ll see a screen that looks like this …
It’s important to note that the person you’re deleting from your LinkedIn contacts won’t ever know that they’ve been given the boot. There’s no notification sent or any other thing to let them know you’ve had enough. That’s good.
Since we’re on this topic, maybe it makes sense to think about how often we collectively review and/or clean out our social media accounts. I know that I weed out my Twitter account on a monthly basis, and try and do a good job of policing my Facebook connections as well. But up until now, I’ve not given a bit of thought to what my LinkedIn connections look like. However, I do find that the more popular LinkedIn becomes, the more spammy messages are received.
This topic will serve as a reminder to me to occasionally pop over to LinkedIn, spend some time browsing through my connections, and maybe even punting a few of them from time to time.
What about you? Have you ever wanted to remove a LinkedIn connection but didn’t know how? If so, hopefully this overview will help. And thanks to Ann Marie for asking about it to begin with. And if we’re not yet connected on LinkedIn, pop on over and remedy that.
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
