Ten Tips for a better LinkedIn profile 5/10

Your LinkedIn Profile is certainly your first, and can be your last chance to make a positive impression online.

It’s a combination of a sales pitch, a personal presentation, a business card, a brochure, a personal statement, a list of recommendations, a mini web-site, and a wave from across the room. It has a lot of work to do, and it only has a few seconds to either succeed or fail in doing that work. So — how do you make it a success?

This is the fifth of Ten Top Tips with my compliments, to help you make your LinkedIn Profile more effective. Enjoy!

Don’t want to read this? Listen to it on SoundCloud (1m 57s)

Ten Top Tips for a Better LinkedIn Profile: 5/10

Tip 5: Use recommendations effectively

What you say is biased.

Of course it is! I don’t really believe your claims, because I simply don’t know you yet. All the same, I know you are going to be biased. Because you’re you — of course you are biased!

However, when I see a photo of your customer telling me how your service or product specifically benefited them, and I see what industry they are in, where they are, what their name and job title is, and can follow a link to their profile, THEN I can believe it.

And if I see lots of such statements… it shows me different aspects of your work or product, and adds even more credibility.

How do you get recommendations or testimonials?

Well, they don’t often come out of the blue in LinkedIn. Try this — ask for them from your customers. Say “I want to add some really credible recommendations to my online profile so that people can see the real benefits that I deliver. Would you please add your testimonial?”

The worse that can happen is someone might say no — so you can ask someone else, and perhaps cross the first one off your Christmas card list.

Take a look at some of the recommendations given for people who are NOT in your LinkedIn network — and think about what your first impression is based on what others say. Then take a look for people you know — and see if your knowledge of them is supported by what others say.

Another great way to get recommendations is of course to give them.

So in a nutshell:

Have other people tell me why it benefited them to do business with you — precisely, exactly, measurably, specifically — because I can believe them immediately. In a word, it’s credibility.

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David Petherick is Director of First Impressions at Amazes.Me and makes your online presence visible, legible and credible at I Own My Own Name. Follow him on Twitter at @petherick_ or circle him on Google Plus. Please feel free to connect on LinkedIn

You can listen to all of David’s Tips for a better LinkedIn Profile at https://soundcloud.com/petherick/sets/linkedin-top-ten-tips

Originally published at www.linkedin.com on December 9, 2014.