It has been half a year since LinkedIn introduced their Endorsement feature. It allows users to endorse their colleagues and business partners for their skills and expertise with great ease. No longer do you need to spend a long time carefully structuring your recommendation into a nice paragraph that describes why you recommend the work of the individual. Now it takes just a click to endorse someone. And you don’t even need to come up with the skill you want to endorse the person for. LinkedIn can do it for you.
A couple of weeks ago LinkedIn announced that since last September more than a billion endorsements have been made. It is hardly surprising. What is surprising, though, is another endorsement-related statistic that LinkedIn have announced:
1bn Linkedin endorsements have lead to 2x increase in weekly recommendations
It really surprised me. Since the introduction of endorsements there has been a perception that the number of recommendations would only fall. And yet, rather counter-intuitively, as people get used to the culture of endorsements, they become more likely to make the effort to write a paragraph recommending their business partner.
This is an encouraging statistic. Despite the dangers of spam and gaming the system, the Endorsement feature encourages genuine participation due to its simplicity and ease of use. We’ll see how the feature evolves over time. For now, enjoy the infographic!
Read more: 3 benefits of using LinkedIn for B2B lead generation
Images courtesy of Petter Palander (Flickr) and LinkedIn
