Why endorsements and recommendations are important

Users often overlook endorsements and recommendations from LinkedIn. We don’t bother asking for or giving them.

And this is a huge mistake.

They are critical for both platform SEO and social proof.

Why?

First, they show off your skills and expertise and competencies based on your relationships and second, they help your prospects find you.

How? ‘Or’ what?

Imagine you’re looking to improve your sales game by hiring social sales consultants, who do you think is the most knowledgeable: someone who has been approved once for social selling, or someone who has received over 99 recommendations?

We both know you would choose the second one.

It is therefore in LinkedIn’s interest of LinkedIn to make you first find a profile most likely to meet your criteria, because if you were to be dissatisfied, you would no longer use their platform. This is why their search algorithm takes endorsements into account.

Recommendations, on the other hand, are not as important for SEO, but they are quite crucial for social proof.

Let’s go back to the previous example: who would you hire as a social sales consultant? Someone who has no recommendations, or someone who has been recommended many times by other people who have the same needs as you?

Again, the choice would be the second profile.

Why?

Because, according to Dr. Robert Cialdini, “usually when a lot of people do something, it is the right thing to do” and when people are unsure of what to do, “people are particularly likely to follow the example of others there.”

This principle applies on many other occasions, but in our case, if several people have chosen a particular person to help them, there must be a reason.

At least that’s what we think — we’re biased.

Now that we understand the importance of endorsements and recommendations, how do we get them?

Some people take the easy route: they buy them.

Don’t tell me that offends you.

There are many services that will sell you both for a small fee.

Using such services could do you more harm than good, because most of the time, the profiles used to perform these kinds of services are obviously bogus and easy to spot.

What would happen to your reputation if a potential customer were to discover that a single review was false?

You got it.

You lose the market.

By using a false review, you have broken the trust between yourself and the person on the other side of the screen. You lost a customer before you even had a chance to speak to them.

What you should do instead is reach out to your customers and colleagues, past and present, and ask them to give you support and a referral if they want to.

By doing so, you will have real proof of your worth and, in case prospects would like to check your references by contacting them, you will have a real lawyer for your service.

I know, it’s not easy.

It will take time and effort to accumulate a large number, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

So go ahead and start reaching out to your customers and colleagues.

And if you need inspiration for a compelling message, Stent can help you with that!