Here’s what it looks like:

You can see how useful it will be in terms of building credibility.Your endorsements are a great visual way for others to instantly see your skills. On the flip side, it is easier for connections to compare your skills to your competitors, so you can see how important it is to gain more endorsements.

So how do you set up your LinkedIn profile to take full advantage of this new feature?

Add Your Skills

Now is a good time to complete your LinkedIn profile if you haven’t done so already. Just go to Edit Your Profile, scroll down to Skills and start adding your expertise.

Here’s a handy tip from Social Media Examiner on adding your skills

Make sure you add your skills in order of importance to you, as these will be the first ones listed on your profile and thus the easiest for your connections to see. As you get more endorsements for a particular skill, that skill will automatically rise to the top of the list, as your skills will then be listed by numerical order of endorsements.

Add popular skills to your profile

If you hover your mouse over a skill, a popup box with further information about that skill appears with a figure %, which refers to the popularity of that skill being added to other people’s profiles.

How do you endorse a connection?

• On the top of a connection’s profile, you’ll see recommended endorsements for them. You can suggest additional skills as well.
• You can also endorse them from the new Skills & Expertise section that now showcases these endorsements.

When someone endorses your skills, LinkedIn will send you an email to let you know and the endorsement will show in your LinkedIn newsfeed. This is a good opportunity to send a message to the endorser thanking them for their endorsement and perhaps suggesting a way you can be of service to each other.

We think the new endorsement feature is a positive way to strengthen connections and boost your credibility and profile on LinkedIn. What do you think?

The post How to set up your LinkedIn profile for endorsement appeared first on Write On Track.

If the idea of cold-calling leaves you, well, cold, then why not use your LinkedIN contacts to warm things up a bit? In today’s post, we show you step-by-step exactly how.

Step One – Search

Go to the search bar on the top right hand corner of your LinkedIN profile and enter a search term for the area you are interested in. I’ve chosen to search for “social media”.

Step 2 Refine Search

Now I refine my search – in this case, to Ireland.

Scrolling down through this list, some of these people I am already connected to (1st connections) but I want to refine my search further to 2nd connections.

I can continue to further refine my selection, by choosing to narrow my search to location or industry until I find exactly which area or people I am looking to connect with. When I am happy with my selection, I can see who our shared connections are and I can then ask one of them if they’d be willing to make an introduction.

Step 3 – Get Introduced

In this case I have chosen to get introduced to Fiona Ashe and I have 11 of my 1st connections who can do that for me. Now it’s just a matter of choosing which of these 11 I think would be the best person to effect that introduction.

Now some of you might think why not just click the “add to network button”? And yes, you can try this,  but that is the more scatter gun approach to making connections. Think about how much more effective your approach will be with a personal introduction and how it can help you identify warm leads for your prospecting. It allows you to “sound” out your first connections on the best approach to make to your prospect and to gather some first hand knowledge of whether they are in the market for just what you are offering.

Now for an example of how this would work for our own business, Write on Track, which provides a ghost blogging service to SMEs and those who wish to get started with blogging. Say we come across a new start-up with their shiny new website but no blog. We know a blog would greatly enhance their ability to promote their new product or service, drive sales to their online store, and help raise their profile.  We would like to approach them and offer our services, and by using the method we’ve outlined above, we can ask one of our previous clients on LinkedIN, to make that introduction and recommend our services.

We all prefer to do business with someone who comes personally recommended. So, why not try this method for yourself and see if this is one way you can warm up those cold calls when approaching your prospects and do let us know how you get on!

The post How to warm cold calls with LinkedIN appeared first on Write On Track.