TL;DR
– Ask satisfied clients and collaborators for recommendations after successful projects.
– Write personalized and specific recommendations with concrete examples of collaboration.
– Strategically display recommendations on your profile for immediately visible social proof.
– Diversify recommendations among clients, managers, and colleagues for complete credibility.
– Respond to and thank people for recommendations received to maintain active professional relationships.
Since its creation, LinkedIn has offered users the ability to post recommendations for others in their network. These recommendations are often useful for other professionals looking to learn more about a particular user, so much so that the feature is often considered essential for LinkedIn prospecting.
How do LinkedIn recommendations work? Who can leave a recommendation? How to write a good one? What’s the benefit for a company?
If you’re interested in learning how the conversion rate on LinkedIn and recommendations work, you’ve come to the right place!
What is a LinkedIn Recommendation?
Unlike a LinkedIn post, a recommendation is a comment left by one user on another user’s profile, usually someone they have worked with. Originally, these recommendations were intended to provide other members of the professional social network with an indication of your knowledge, skills, and professionalism.
Recommendations can be left by anyone, although they are generally left by colleagues or superiors.
Recommendations are essential if you want to improve your visibility and grow your network!
Recommendations are effective, but it’s better to diversify your strategy: if you’re in B2B, consider lead generation with LinkedIn, for example!
LaGrowthMachine is a tool that allows you to create automated email and automated LinkedIn message sequences to help you constantly contact new people and generate new leads.
What are LinkedIn Recommendations Used For?
Recommendations are an excellent way to show others what you are capable of and the quality of your work. Furthermore, recommendations can help you stand out from other candidates when applying for a job.
Unlike buying contacts on LinkedIn, recommendations are also a great way to connect with other professionals on LinkedIn. By leaving a recommendation for someone, you show that you are open to professional relationships and that you appreciate their work. They also contribute to improving your Social Selling Index.
If you are a freelancer or consultant, recommendations can therefore be very useful for developing your business.
Finally, recommendations can help strengthen your LinkedIn profile’s credibility and improve your professional reputation. Recommendations are often taken into account by recruiters and employers, and can therefore play an important role in your career (for this, you can use LinkedIn Premium Career).
How Do LinkedIn Recommendations Work?
LinkedIn recommendations are quite simple to write and publish (note: you must not be in private mode to leave a recommendation). All you have to do is go to the profile of the person you want to recommend, then click on the “recommend” button.
You will then be redirected to a page where you can write your recommendation. There are a few fields to fill in, such as your current position, the position held by the recommended person, and a brief description of your professional relationship.
Once you have written your recommendation, just click “send” and it will be visible on the recommended person’s profile.
In its guidelines, LinkedIn recommends that users do not recommend more than five people at a time, as this can seem suspicious to other members of the professional social network (the platform also recommends not to scrape emails, by the way…).
Who Can Leave a Recommendation on LinkedIn?
As we mentioned earlier, anyone can leave a recommendation on LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn recommends that users only recommend people they know well and have worked closely with.
Indeed, if you are a manager and you recommend all the employees in your department, it undermines the fairness of the feature. Similarly, if you recommend someone you don’t know very well, or with whom you’ve never worked, and they disappoint the person hiring them based on the qualities you recommended, your own image could suffer.
Who to Ask for a LinkedIn Recommendation?
If you need a recommendation, the best person to ask is someone you have worked closely with and who knows your work well. This could be:
- a former colleague or supervisor;
- a client if you worked directly with them;
- a supplier or partner;
- a mentor or coach;
- a professor;
- a business owner;
- etc…
How to Write a Good LinkedIn Recommendation?
As we saw earlier, recommendations are a real asset on the professional social platform.
Here are a few tips for writing a good recommendation:
- Take the time to think carefully before recommending someone. If you don’t know them very well or haven’t worked with them, it might not be a good idea to recommend them.
- Make a real impact on the recommended profile. If you recommend someone, it should be because you sincerely believe they are talented and deserve to be recommended. Avoid “copy/paste” recommendations or those that say nothing about the person being recommended.
- Be specific in your recommendation. Clearly state the reasons why you recommend this person, what their strengths are, and how they stand out from their peers.
- Keep in mind that your recommendation will be visible to everyone on the recommended profile, so don’t hesitate to be complimentary without being overly flattering.
Conclusion
As you’ve understood, there are many different ways to boost your lead generation on LinkedIn. If you want to take it to the next level, you should consider using LinkedIn recommendations. Why? Because they work!
In this article, we’ve shown you proof that LinkedIn recommendations help companies improve their lead generation. We’ve also given you some tips on how to write good recommendations. So the next time you have the opportunity, don’t hesitate to let our article guide you!