Online recommendations are huge. In today's internet research market, you ARE what people are saying about you. Some glowing recommendations from clients on the web can help a person searching for you make that decision to pick up the phone and connect.
"How do I invite my client to recommend me on LinkedIn?" This is a question that comes up frequently. I am a big fan of utilizing LinkedIn as a place to collect client recommendations. Here are two different methods for doing so...
Request Recommendations on LinkedIn
One of the very best uses of LinkedIn is as a place to gather recommendations from your clients. These are public and show up on the web when people are researching you.
1. Log into your LinkedIn account. (Or get one - you are a professional and you should have an account. It's free and easy.)
2. Make sure you are linked to the person you're requesting the recommendation from. If you are not, search for them to see if they are on LinkedIn and request to link up. (If they are not on LinkedIn at all skip to the information below…)
3. After you’re all linked up—click on Profile / Recommendations
4. Click on “Request Recommendations” and fill out that information
Note: This method is for requesting recommendations from people who are members of LinkedIN
Tip: Include a well crafted personal note when requesting a recommendation.
How to get the recommendation if your client is NOT on LinkedIn:
LinkedIn has not made this an easy process and it is really set up for people within the LinkedIn community to provide recommendations. The best method I have heard of to add recommendations to your LinkedIn account from people not on LinkedIn…
1.) Invite them to join LinkedIn and provide a link for them to do that. Include your request for a recommendation as well. This would only be appropriate for certain people… LinkedIn is not for everybody. AND this is a lot of steps for somebody to go through to create the recommendation.
2.) An alternate method is to add the Box.Net application to your LinkedIn account.
From "edit profile"—select “Add an Application” and choose Box.Net. Then your client can send your recommendation in any form (email, letter, handwritten note…) and you can upload it to your LinkedIn account. (It would be nice to get their permission to display their comments on your account.)
Yelp.com and Google Places are also excellent places to request on-line recommendations.
(Click for a downloadable document)
Does anybody else have tips on gathering recommendations? Do you prefer to gather your recommendations all in one place or do you spread the info over different sites? What are your favorite recommendation sites?
Happy marketing and recommendation building to you!
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