LinkedIn Tip: You May Not Own Your Contacts List & What To Do About It Now

“Business owners, contractors, and career folks beware. If a company you work for doesn’t have a social networking policy, create one and make your boss sign it! CYA ”     — Maria Marsala

In this very informative article, http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcoursey/2011/11/03/who-owns-your-linkedin-contacts/ Deb McAlister, who is writing a book regarding social media and the law, shows us that it may or may not be us!  That’s pretty strange considering that all LI accounts are personal — not business accounts.

I will add a few more possiblities that may make you lose your LI contact list.

1) It’s possible that some day, you’ll get shut off from getting into your LinkedIn account because you did something you didn’t realize was against the rules (like I have — when I put the word Coach in the name field years ago.).

2) If you own a business or not, download your connections somehow to protect them in case the site cancels your subscription, you cancel your subscription, you get banned, or the site goes out of business.

3) What is someone complains about you.  Maybe they say that you’re harassing them or that you’ve called them a name.  Right or wrong, LinkedIn will restrict your account and you won’t be able to get to your contact list.   This sort of situation can take 4 days to rectify.

4) The legal aspect of who owns “your” connections and how having your connections at least downloaded is a prudent thing to do.  Just read another article about a company that is suing an ex-contractor  $300K for taking their twitter account with them (new name and password) when they left.   The contractor tried to get the case thrown out in court, but the judge said no… now a trial will take place.

These situations could mean the loss of important contacts.

What’s a person to do?

Create a reminder in your business calendar to download your contacts (weekly or monthly).  I download mine  monthly.   But if I worked for a company vs. working for myself, I ‘d download them (export them)  weekly.

How do you do it?

Click on “CONTACTS” on the top of your screen.

Let all the contacts load.

Go to the bottom of the page go to EXPORT

Click on it, complete the security codes, and download it to a format you enjoy.

That’s it.  You now have your contacts.  But beware.  If you leave a firm, and signed a non-compete clause, you may not be able to use those contacts for 2 years (or whatever your legal agreement states).

Like this tip?  Read more of Maria’s social networking tips here: http://www.marketingwithintegrity.com/?cat=6

Ready to take your profile and LinkedIn marketing to the next level?  Check out Maria’s CD  http://www.CorporateSecretsMarketing.com/eyb/tele/linkedinprofile.html

(c) 2011 Elevating Your Business.  Business Strategist Maria Marsala, is a former Wall Street trader and early user of computers — think 1973.  She loves to teach her clients how to get the most out of them, too!  Learn how Maria can help your business grow and get your very own Empire Builder Kit at http://www.CoachMaria.com

Adding another link to this post.  This time about Twitter: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/11/14/phonedog-sues-ex-employee-for-his-twitter-account-valuing-his-followers-at-2-50-each/