On The Seventh Day of Christmas my e-Team Gave to Me Seven Real Endorsements

On The Seventh Day of Christmas

Endorsements are a very easy way for others to give you the virtual thumbs-up on LinkedIn.  However, as many of you who are active on LinkedIn may know, it may be almost TOO easy to give endorsements as many people will endorse anyone for anything.  I personally have tons of endorsements from people who I am not connected to, have never done business with and, in fact, have never even met.  These are going to happen, of course, and there’s not much you can do about it.  However, what you can do is try to capitalize on the REAL endorsements, the ones that mean something to you and will mean something to those who are either looking to do business with you or hire you.

So how do you encourage these real endorsements on LinkedIn?  The first thing is to make sure you’re managing your skills and allowing for endorsements.  You can rank the skills you most want to be endorsed for by going into your LinkedIn profile settings.  Since there are 50 different skills that can show up on your profile, ranking them in order of importance is critical.  

You should also be giving out real endorsements (i.e. endorsing those you’ve done business with for the strong skills they’ve exhibited to you).  This is like social media karma: the more real endorsements you give out, the more you’re likely to receive.  

Of course, getting the endorsements is only one part of the big picture.  Yes, having them on your profile alone can be helpful.  However, think about taking it to the next level.  If someone endorses you, this is your chance to reach out.  Maybe you have not spoken with the person for a long period of time and want to get reacquainted, or perhaps you’d like to see if they might be interested in taking the next step and writing a recommendation.  In any event, an endorsement can be the perfect opening to shoot a quick ‘Thanks so much for the endorsement, please let me know if I can provide any further assistance’ note.  You never know where it may lead.

LinkedIn can be a very powerful professional tool and recommendations are unique to this platform.  If you’d like to strengthen your LinkedIn profile, give your e-Team a shout!