How to Write Awesome LinkedIn Recommendations

By Goldbeck Recruiting Inc.

LinkedIn recommendations reinforce your professional brand, giving you credibility and authority in your area of expertise.

Chris Brogan, recommends you give as much as you can, to receive. It is a two way street. Never be afraid to ask, from people that have seen your presentations or projects or likewise. What I have found that works is by writing intelligent LinkedIn recommendations I will receive them back.

I compare writing a LinkedIn recommendation to crafting an Amazon product review. As a consumer, I use it to research whether the product is reliable and the delivery of its promises. I want to know specifics like how long you have had it for and, how it helped alleviate some of their daily chores. I pay no credence to reviews that say “It is great, would recommend” or “it was cheap.” To compare, this is equivalent to saying “Hardworking, nice coworker”. That does not tell me anything about you.

Here are three steps to writing an awesome LinkedIn recommendation:

1)  Be specific. The more specific you are the more credibility your review would have. It is all in the little details. Details build context and trust.

IE: First saw Chris’s presentation on Generational Motivational Differences in the Workplace at CMS Summit 2012. Since then, he has been a feature presenter at some of the biggest conference like….

2) Focus on the results. Were they effective on delivering what they promised?

IE Effective presenter that can clearly translate what otherwise would be a very technical and boring topic to being fully engaging. He delivered different viewpoints that I would not have otherwise have thought of.

3) Ways to Engage. Lastly, include the different ways their readers can engage with them.

This is a good example from Chris Brogan:

“C.C. Chapman has successfully executed more actionable social media strategies than most people have even started to think about. He counts companies like Coke, American Eagle, and Verizon amongst his client base. His projects have involved building Facebook applications, deploying blogger relationships campaigns, and defining online brand engagement strategies. C.C. works in the specific, starting from the landscape, but ending in actionable engagements. I’d recommend him with any project that requires the very best in social media execution.”

This recommendation mentions ways you can engage with him, in this example a social media projects. It states what you can expect when you do engage. Finally, a stamp of approval, there is a list of trusted brands. We all gravitate towards trusted and recognized brands at the end of the day.

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