In this tip, we are talking about one of my favorite reasons to use LinkedIn, and that’s LinkedIn Recommendations. In the video I show you my profile and what the recommendations look like. You’ll see that recommendations are in LinkedIn in multiple places. They’re under each one of your titles so they can be associated or they will be associated with a specific type of experience. But then there’s also a section, and mine is all the way at the bottom, you could reorganize these, but I like when people read them in the sections anyway, where you have all of them are listed together.
This is so important because this is not just social proof, it’s social proof on steroids! If you have recommendations or testimonials on your website, I believe them. I believe that these people actually said these things about you. But I don’t know who these people are and I don’t know what they know about you. I don’t know if they’re really credible, if they’re your brother, or aunt, or your uncle, or if they really even have a business. On LinkedIn however, I can click right through to the profile of the people that have recommended you.
Really cool stuff. This is something you don’t want to overlook. Often people ask me, “How do I get recommendations?”, “Do I just ask people?” There are a few ways to do this.
First and foremost, anytime somebody says something nice to you, like if you’ve done an event, or you worked with them, and then they said, “Thanks so much, you were great.” The next words out of my mouth are always, “Thank you so much, it’s so great to hear that. How would you feel about putting that in LinkedIn as recommendation for me? That would be really helpful to me.” Most people are more than willing to do that.
Another way to get LinkedIn recommendations is go give LinkedIn recommendations. Just give them freely; be really generous with who you give recommendations to. Give recommendations to your hairstylist. Give recommendations to your personal trainer, your physician, but also think strategically. Have you worked on a project with someone that you can give a recommendation to that might recommend you back? Be generous across the board, but also be generous strategically, and think about who might be able to give you a recommendation back.
Be an accumulator of LinkedIn recommendations, and I think you’re going to find it’s one of the most valuable things you can do for your business marketing.
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Good reminder to reach out and more formally support the people you like, admire, respect, etc.
I find Linkedin the most important Social Media site to boost my influence and meet people who are interested in my business and vice-versa. Pinterest and Linkedin are the most valuable and comfortable sites for me. I was very excited to in find an expert on Linkedin because I took a year off of my business to acquire some exciting new assets to help my clients. Your post was meaningful to me. Although I have many recommendations from either clients or authors I have helped, I have been lax about recommending in return. I plan on going through the list and reciprocate. Thanks so much for the reminder.