We don’t need no stinkin' Endorsements - Musings from an Independent Marketing Provocateur Musings from an Independent Marketing Provocateur

Two social media events this week caused my ISP to shudder with traffic overload. One was the highly publicized, and ill-considered, tweet from KitchenAid during the Presidential Debate on Wednesday. The second was the launch of the new Endorsement feature on LinkedIn.

In the span of a few hours my Twitter and LinkedIn feeds started to resemble the White House tickertape during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Here’s the thing, I consider both of them poorly-thought-through, rookie maneuvers.

KitchenAid is another in a long line of “Sh*t, I accidentally posted from my Job not my Private account” imbecilic moves. The social media managers who made the same mistake at the US Red Cross and for Chrysler in Detroit likely don’t have to worry about the FBI, NSA and Secret Service following their every move. Here’s hoping Obama is in a forgiving mood.

The launch of Endorsements on LinkedIn had me scratching my head with equal abandon.

Why are you being a Hater Hilton?

Quite simply because I consider this feature the least sincere, least-worthy benchmark of my professional ability I could imagine. It is the professional version of a Facebook “Like” and carries with it about as much engagement and effort on the part of the Endorser.

For the record I’m a staunch advocate and super-user of LinkedIn. I belong to numerous groups and try to actively contribute to those and the Q&A sections regularly. Additionally, as an Independent Marketing consultant, LinkedIn is a pipeline for new connections and business development. It is without equal in those areas.

But here’s the crux of the matter…

With the Recommendations feature, the person writing the recommendation had to take time to consider what they wanted to say, to articulate what service you’d provided that warranted a Recommendation. It took effort and, as any Social Media 101 class would tell you, the more effort, the more “engagement” on the part of the user, the higher the perceived value of that comment.

To repeat…the higher the perceived value of that comment.

I am proud of the 50 or so Recommendations I’ve garnered. The colleagues, clients and partners who took time to write those were invested in our relationship and valued my contribution to that relationship.

Recommendations had an ancillary benefit too. They improved your search rankings within LinkedIn. The more Recommendations, the higher your name ranked when folks were searching for skills/talent. That’s all good and in my mind totally appropriate. Highly recommended folks should naturally rise to the top – social media Darwinism perhaps?

Isn’t there an Upside to Endorsements?

Sure there is. The folks at Saqui Research wrote an interesting blog on how Endorsements can provide insight into how your network actually perceives you. If you consider yourself spectacular at Marmalade Making and list it in the Skills section of your profile, you’d hope you’re getting endorsements aplenty for it. However, if your network endorses your Balloon Animal skills higher then there’s a disconnect. A perceived gap between your perceptions and your network’s perception of you. Something, that if you track your Endorsements, you can attempt to rectify.

Sound logic? Sure.

But that still doesn’t reduce the notion that an Endorsement can be given so arbitrarily. One click, done. No reflection. Almost zero effort required.

My three biggest concerns

Endorsements become more important for LinkedIn search rankings than Recommendations. Why is that a worry? Re-read the “Hater” section above.
Endorsements become the next “must have” social media currency causing the next “Arms Race” to collect the most. Just as “Likes” diminished the perceived value of certain Facebook metrics, Endorsements will have that same effect on LinkedIn.
This is a thinly-veiled traffic building tactic for LinkedIn. By creating low-involvement currency tools like this, they can attract more traffic volume to the site – see point 2 above.

Am I being a curmudgeon on this topic? Do Endorsements really enhance the perceived expertise of the professional they are attached to? Do you put more faith in them than a Recommendation?

Please ping me back and, while you’re on my LI profile page, feel free to add a few words. Click the “Send Recommendation” button…

Photo credit: My thanks to Alfonso Bedoya from the 1948 John Huston film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

derek walker

Amen.

I think that Kitchenaid’s response was great, it was swift and clear. They left no room for confusion on how they felt about this mistake. I love how they handled it.
Now, about Linkedin. Thank you. I have gone as far as to ask people I am connected with to NOT endorse me if they cannot take the time to write something for themselves instead of checking off a box, as you know. To me, this feels like Linkedin’s version of facebbok’s “likes.” And that is not a good thing.

You are so right, it diminishes the value of a recommendation to make it easier. This may increase Linkedin traffic but it cheapens the brand. I’m not sure it was worth it.
Ursula

Hi Hilton,

Thanks for reading my post. I agree that clicking on a skill takes little effort and may be arbitrary. So I would definitely recommend thinking through if what you are getting endorsed for makes sense in light of other data. I would think of endorsements as not necessarily definitive information but information to ponder.

I am curious to see how endorsements will play out and if potential clients see them as useful information in decision-making.
HiltonB1

Ursula – your post was the only rational explanation I’ve seen for this new feature. I’m hoping the current furore dies down because my current LI feed is almost useless to me as everyone clamours to Endorse each other. Straight-up, what relative “value” do you attach to a Recommendation versus a Endorsement?
ks

I think you are spot on Hilton; I personally also have problems with Recommendations, I find that so many of them are reciprocal that it they they seem like some group “warm fuzzy” excercise; There may well be plenty of genuine Recommendations out there, but my suspiscions of people being nice to each other for mutual benefit mean I have to dig if I am to trust them.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=695917208 Tony Larks

I would have hoped that Linkedin was moving to add a reputation based system, rather the boy scout system of how many badges can you achieve. It’s gamification with no end payoff.
As with Like, there was a need for a Dislike.
With Linkedin Recommendations, there should be an anonymous element and the ability to highlight the skills or qualities you lack – or do we assume that they are those without any scores. Eek, I need to delete B2C from my list :O)
HiltonB1

Kris – fair point on Recommendations. Certainly a fair degree of reciprocity going on there. My concern remains that, with Endorsements, it is just a single-click – no thought or genuine reflection on the part of the Endorser. At least with Recommendations the recommender had to put some effort into it.
HiltonB1

Tony – your FourSquare “Check-in” analogy may actually be closer than my “Like” analogy. I’m assuming your last comment refers to Endorsements (rather than Recommendations) and I also worry that, if Endorsements are actually a score than impacts your search results, then they just result in folks gaming the system. That benefits no-one.
http://twitter.com/pgladney pgladney

Agreed that is is a fail. In addition to the feature’s spammy output, I’ve found myself getting “endorsed” by friends and people that I’ve never worked with – which lacks credibility. Linked In recommendations have always lacked weight due to the fact the recepient is vetting them before publishing, and this latest move does nothing to support the site as a credible representation of one’s professional brand.
HiltonB1

Patrick – great point about the effectiveness of this feature to “grade” professional talent or to build credentials behind your own personal brand. Appreciate the nuance of your point about Recommendations being vetted before being published. Personally i have asked “recommenders” to rewrite certain sections for me to address obvious misses like typos. Nothing minimizes the Recommendation like a glaring typo. In your opinion, do you see Endorsements staying and is there a way to make them more meaningful?
interacter

Nasty little addition to the system, in my opinion, which will likely devalue genuine recommendations.
Facebook, Klout etc already cater for this click-and-clickoff mentality, so I wonder why LinkedIn are bothering… Aside from the obvious fact that they’re trying to make the system more dip-in-dip-out-able and thus win more traffic.

I doubt that it’ll last long, or, if it does, genuine professionals interested in other genuine professionals will simply screen Endorsements out as noise…
HiltonB1

Thanks Neil. Do we really need any more social noise? See Patrick’s note below. This feature is adding to my LI “spam” in my Newsfeed and that’s another fail IMHO.
Alan Langford

My expectations were completely congruent with your thoughts here. But when I added a skill to mock the system, uptake was a lot lower than I expected (details at http://www.ambitonline.com/nextrelease/2013/01/are-linkedin-endorsements-useless/). Still I think it’s early days and the value of an endorsement can only depreciate over time.

We don’t need no stinkin’ Endorsements

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