It sometimes surprises business owners how many uses there are for LinkedIn, including several that don’t even involve checking out whether your employees are looking for other jobs. In fact, depending on what your company offers, you could be sitting on a potentially powerful sales and marketing tool… and one that lots of businesses never even take advantage of.
It’s the small link at the bottom of your profile that allows your clients and customers to say good things about your work and recommend you to their friends and colleagues.
You might be thinking that this isn’t all that different from other social media tools, or even the testimonials on your website. But what makes this feature so handy, and so powerful, is that it places these glowing recommendations in an entirely new context. Instead of having to send out client quotes and letters, which usually comes off as “salesy” even when it’s done correctly, the recommendations on LinkedIn seem less formal and more genuine.
To put it in another context, consider this: to benefit from your LinkedIn recommendations, you don’t have to get prospective buyers to your website, don’t have to persuade them to look through your brochure, or even make any initial personal contact with you at all; all it takes is a quick, searchable, professional-looking profile with a few good testimonials. And given that LinkedIn has more than 50 million members, it’s only a matter of time before all these great recommendations are seen by someone who can act upon them.
LinkedIn Means Business
So, once you have filled out your LinkedIn profile and presented yourself like a professional or company that other people want to do business with, encourage your best clients to write a few words on your behalf. It shouldn’t take long before you have a small stable of online references to pull from – and they will work as a compelling social media marketing tool for all the world to see.