LinkedIn Endorsements...Helping You Build Your Personal Brand

Love them or hate them, LinkedIn Endorsements are here to stay so if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to embrace them and make them work for you and your brand.

If I’m honest, the roll-out of Endorsements from LinkedIn seemed a little frivolous to me for a site promoting itself as a professional platform for networking and business. The Recommendations feature has always worked well and the new ‘Endorsement’ one seemed very Facebook Like’ish when all you have to do is hit the ‘Endorse’ button and hey presto, it’s job done. However, just like social media in general, new features or apps take time to adapt to and learn how to use effectively. If you remember when the ‘Endorsements’ feature first rolled out there was a lot of reciprocal endorsing going on, you endorse me, I endorse you and everybody is happy. Thankfully that seems to have levelled out as we all know using Endorsements like that is missing the point entirely and doesn’t benefit anyone in the long run.

While the Recommendations feature is superior to the light-touch ‘Endorsement’ one, there is still a place for them as they’re an excellent way of quickly acknowledging the specific skills of a connection. For the receiver, each endorsement contributes to building a powerful profile with lots of credibility. And that matters for personal branding.

You can list up to 50 skills (not sure I would) so be sure the skills you list represent how you/your brand want to be perceived. If you’ve got skills on there that are not representing you well, delete them.

How do you do that?

Step 1. Go into ‘Edit Profile’

Step 2. Move down to ‘Skills & Expertise,’ select the ‘edit’ icon

Step 3. Remove the skills you don’t want on your LinkedIn profile.

You’ll also see in here, the ‘Manage Endorsements’ button. Click it and up pops your Skills along with the list of people who endorsed each skill. If for any reason, there is someone listed there that you’d rather not display on your profile, this is the place to remove them.

LinkedIn Etiquette

On a final note, and it’s kind of my thing to mention etiquette, but have you thanked the people who endorsed you? LinkedIn is about building quality connections, and creating relationships with a potential to drive business your way so if someone endorses you, it kind of makes sense to acknowledge it and start the dialogue. Who knows where it might lead.

What’s your thoughts about LinkedIn’s Endorsement? Do you see them as benefiting your brand?

If you’d like to learn more about using LinkedIn for your business, call me on 01 547 7884 and let’s talk about a customised training programme for you.

To your online success!