This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to manage recommendations using LinkedIn’s new recommendation dashboard.

LinkedIn recently revitalized their recommendation management dashboard to make it easier to track your given or received recommendations.

For example, asking for recommendation edits, changing your recommendations public visibility, and recommending other LinkedIn users has now been improved. Check it out!

See Also: How to remove a LinkedIn connection

Video Tutorial

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Managing Received and Given Recommendations

LinkedIn’s new recommendation dashboard will help you organize and highlight the best ones you’ve received or provided for other users.

To enter LinkedIn’s new recommendation dashboard, first navigate to Linkedin.com/recs

From here, you’ll first see existing received, pending, or given recommendations.

After clicking on the received tab, LinkedIn will populate every single recommendation that has been written for you.

Now this is going to be helpful in highlighting particular recommendations over others like a clients recommendation over a co-workers, which can be done by clicking and dragging them into a new order.

You can also change the visibility of your recommendations on your profile if they’ve become obsolete by checking or unchecking the box next to the user’s profile picture.

Asking for LinkedIn Recommendations

Asking for recommendations on LinkedIn is now much easier with this new update and should be fully taken advantage of.

From the recommendation dashboard select Ask for recommendations, and follow the steps outlined to begin drafting your recommendation request.

Steps include choosing the position you’d like to be recommended for, selecting the user or users you’d like to ask, your relationship to that user, and finally the message asking them for a recommendation.

Keep in mind, if you choose more than one connection to send the message to, keep the message general, though I would highly recommend personalizing each recommendation you send.

Now if you have a pending recommendation that hasn’t been written by the person you’ve asked yet. You can also use this section of the dashboard to send them a friendly reminder.

Giving LinkedIn recommendations

Giving LinkedIn recommendations is useful for helping others professional careers and can also bring traffic back to your own profile if your recommendation is visible on their profile.

From the recommendation dashboard select Give recommendations, and follow the steps outlined to begin drafting your recommendation.

Steps include choosing the user you’d like to be recommended, defining your relationship to that user, and finally your recommendation and personalized message to the users after you submit it to them for approval.

Giving recommendations is also a good way to prompt the user to recommend you, though I’d advise not taking recommendation trading to the extreme.

Takeaway

It’s important to think of LinkedIn as your resume that’s online 24/7 and your profile should be created and updated with the same amount of attention. Whether you’re a college student looking for a job, a sales rep looking for prospects, or a budding social CEO, LinkedIn recommendations can go a long way in authenticating your abilities and building trust. Now we finally have a convenient recommendations dashboard to manage them.

How do you feel about LinkedIn recommendations? Are they legit indicator of skills or a gamed tactic for phonies. Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.