Being the only platform of its kind, LinkedIn is dedicated to professional networking. It presents users with growth opportunities and an insight into industry trends. LinkedIn was launched in 2003, and since then, the platform has evolved into a corporate hub. Now, users can showcase their skills, share their work experiences, and boast their achievements. The platform also allows users to connect with colleagues, employers, and industry experts, in a professional setting.
Although, if you’re LinkedIn presence is not optimized—or if you’re looking to rebrand your professional presence, you may be looking for ways to delete your LinkedIn account. If that’s the case, this guide is all you need. We will give you step-by-step instructions on how to delete LinkedIn account.
However, if you want to optimize your LinkedIn account, check out Social Champ. Here, you’ll find all the tips, insights, and tools you need to rebuild your LinkedIn presence!
How to Delete Your LinkedIn Account via Browser
So now get to the questions at hand: How do you permanently delete your LinkedIn account? There are two ways to do this. First, let’s look at steps on how to delete your LinkedIn account from the browser.
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Step 1
- Open LinkedIn from your browser
- Sign in to your account
- Select the Me option in the top right corner. You can find this beneath your profile photo.
- Select Settings & Privacy from the drop-down menu that appears.
Step 2
- Tap Account Preferences on the left side of the screen.
- Select Account Management.
Step 3
From the Account Management section, select Change in the Close Account tab.
Step 4
- You will be asked to confirm your decision.
- Select your reason for leaving and click Next.
Step 5
You will be asked to put your password in again for further verification. After inserting your password, select Close Account.
Related Article: 20 Reliable LinkedIn Tools to Elevate Your Professional Presence in 2024
How to Delete Your LinkedIn Account via LinkedIn App
If you don’t want to go through the hassle of opening your account on a laptop, you can delete it directly from the app. Here are instructions on how to delete a LinkedIn account via the LinkedIn app.
Step 1
- Open the app
- On the upper left corner, you’ll find your profile photo. Tap it.
Step 2
Select Settings from the bottom-left corner.
Step 3
Select Account Preferences.
Step 4
Select Close Account from the bottom of the menu.
Step 5
You’ll get a warning message stating that you’ll lose all data and connections if you close the account. If you still wish to delete your LinkedIn account, select Continue.
Step 6
Select a reason for closing your LinkedIn account, and then select Next.
Step 7
Now, the LinkedIn app will ask you to confirm your password once more for verification purposes. Once you type that in, select Done.
Related Article: LinkedIn Algorithm Explained & How Does it Work in 2024
Why Delete Your LinkedIn Account
Now that you know how, let’s take a look at some reasons why you may deactivate LinkedIn account.
Staying Relevant Is Time Consuming
Utilizing the full potential of LinkedIn for your business or professional growth can be time consuming. Trying to make meaningful connections means introducing your skills to a lot of people, which requires dedicated effort on a daily basis. You’ll need to spend time to build an engaging profile, interact with others, and join discussions within your industry.
Just like all social media platforms, maintaining visibility on LinkedIn means regular activity on your profile. This means, you’ll need to create and share content on a regular basis. Unfortunately, this can take up too much of your time, thereby compelling you to delete LinkedIn.
If this is the reason you’re searching ‘how to delete LinkedIn’, there’s a solution! You can use platforms like Social Champ to plan and schedule posts on the platform. Social Champ also offers AI Wizard, which can help you ideate and create relevant posts within your industry. This way, you can maintain your presence online without allocating too much of your time to the platform.
There’s Too Much Competition
LinkedIn is a world of fierce competition and managing it on a regular basis can be quite tiring. With a massive 75 million registered companies on the platform, and a whopping 930 million members all trying for attention, standing out for any job potential requires more than just time.
More than 40 million people apply for jobs every week through LinkedIn, which makes it hard to get noticed. This nonstop effort to get some visibility can result in exhaustion, as the challenge to get an edge becomes more and more demanding.
If the pressure feels too much for you, taking a temporary break from LinkedIn, like hibernating your LinkedIn account, can be a reasonable option. It gives you a pause from the constant competition and gives you some time to recharge. However, if you really feel like you’ve had enough of this competition, maybe deleting your LinkedIn account is the permanent solution you’re looking for.
Your Target Audience Doesn’t Use the Platform
LinkedIn marketing may not be a good fit for every business type. Even though it is usually a good platform for implementing B2B strategies, it may not produce the same results for B2C marketing approaches.
Like all social media marketing strategies, LinkedIn’s usefulness depends on your audience’s presence. If your target audience isn’t using LinkedIn, then you might be wasting resources, time, and budget in trying to manage your business’s LinkedIn profile.
Security Risk
LinkedIn is a useful professional networking tool, but it has had its fair share of privacy challenges over the years. Besides the major security breaches—like the hacking of 6.5 million passwords in 2012 and a data breach affecting over 167 million accounts in 2016, it has recently faced a data breach of 816 million B2B profiles. These incidents cast doubt on LinkedIn’s ability to protect user data.
Other than that, LinkedIn, like any other social media networks, has the freedom to use user data. This includes information shared on your profile like contact and residential information, connections, and activities, which can be accessed and used by LinkedIn. This raises certain concerns about usage of user data.
Because of these risks and lack of security, many LinkedIn users may think about deleting their LinkedIn accounts. This could be the ultimate way to regain control over your personal information and avoid any potential risk of leaking your data or exploitation of your personal information.
Spam Invasion
Despite being a professional platform, LinkedIn is also susceptible to scams. Dealing with spam on LinkedIn can be really tiring. Due to the platform’s prominence as a top platform for business connections, there’s a lot of unwanted sales news that fills up your inbox. This non-stop spam can make it hard to use LinkedIn for real networking and becomes really frustrating.
If you’re getting too many messages of sales pitch and scam offers, you might think about deleting your LinkedIn account. LinkedIn is important for professional connections, but there’s a challenge to keep it valuable while also dealing with the spam problem.
How to Recover A Deleted LinkedIn Account
Once you delete your LinkedIn account, all the information on your profile, as well as the endorsements, recommendations, certifications and connections that you’ve spent months or even years building, will be gone permanently. Your profile will become invisible on LinkedIn and no one will be able to see it.
After you confirm to delete your LinkedIn account and go through all the steps mentioned above, LinkedIn will offer you two weeks time to retrieve all your data and save a copy of it. However, data like endorsements, recommendations, groups you had been a part of, and any messages you haven’t opened, will be deleted even if you decide to reactivate your LinkedIn account.
For all of these reasons, we want you to consider carefully the choice of deleting your account from LinkedIn. And if you want to reactivate it, we can also guide you about that. Follow the simple steps explained below to reactivate your LinkedIn account within 14 days of deleting it.
Step 1
Sign in to your account either via browser or the LinkedIn app.
Step 2
Select the blue button to Re-activate my account.
Step 3
LinkedIn will confirm that your account has been reactivated, and you will soon get a confirmation email.
Step 4
Once you get the confirmation email, sign in to your account again and get your account back.
Related Article: Important LinkedIn Analytics and Tools to Measure Your ROI in 2024
Conclusion
We hope you will find our simple and easy instructions on how to delete a LinkedIn account useful. There could be many reasons why you would want to delete your LinkedIn account, but you must be aware of the consequences as well.
You will be able to recover your account for 14 days after you delete it, but you won’t get all of your data back. That’s why you should think before deleting your LinkedIn account permanently, and if you’re uncertain, hibernating your LinkedIn account is always a good option as well!
