Someone else saying how amazing you are is always a much more powerful pitch than you telling people how good you are. It’s known as ‘third party validation’ and, understandably, most company owners are keen to let their potential clients what great things people have said about their services.
Savvy business owners feature testimonials on their website – because they know how powerful it is to have positive feedback – and the same applies to LinkedIn. Get your clients to give you recommendations (you are connected to all your clients on LinkedIn, aren’t you?) and do the same for your suppliers.
LinkedIn promotes this and nobody minds being asked for a recommendation – as long as they have actually experienced your products or services. Never ask people who you have only met networking to give you a recommendation or you’ll dilute your credibility. People want to help you and, if asked, will often write something ‘nice’, but it won’t be results focused at all.
What’s the difference between recommendations and endorsements?
Recommendations are written testimonials that are attached to a specific role in your profile.
Endorsements are more of a numbers game – anyone can click the little boxes that pop up asking ‘Does this person know about …?’ It’s not unusual to get endorsements from people you’ve never even met (other than on LinkedIn) and certainly haven’t experienced your services.
The only thing I use endorsements for is to assess the main areas of expertise for the person’s profile. However, I’ve had at least three endorsements for ‘property management’, which is not mentioned anywhere on my profile – and I know very little about it!
If you’re a business owner be aware that testimonials given to your staff stay on their profile – even after they’ve left! It might be worth having a proviso on your company’s social media policy that these testimonials should also be provided to the company for use on the website or in marketing material.
If you want to make LinkedIn work harder to promote your business join us on one of our LinkedIn Free Strategy sessions or sign up for this step-by-step webinar series to get some ideas that will turn LinkedIn into a Lead Generator.
