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How to Promote Your Brand on LinkedIn and Facebook Page with Testimonials (Portfolio)

I hope you had a blast fine-tuning your blog with testimonials last week. It’s really encouraging to hear that some are trying out the methods, can’t wait to receive more feedbacks on that! In the mean time, I will be sharing few more practical ways to display testimonials (and portfolio) on your LinkedIn and Facebook Page! Now there are definitely limitations comparing to working on a self-hosted blog because application is the main key. Not the best of plans but hopefully you can be inspired by this post  and work out creative ways to promote your brand:


Testimonials (Portfolio) on LinkedIn


1.  LinkedIn Recommendations


LinkedIn is well known for its business-oriented social network  among the professionals and experts. Due to that, ‘LinkedIn recommendations’ plays a major role in strengthening your business network by allowing others to know your unique skills and talents when collaborating with a client. There are two things you should know about LinkedIn Recommendations:

linkedin recommendations


a)      How to request a recommendation?

Go to Profile -> Recommendations -> Request Recommendations

I would suggest you to only send recommendation requests to people you know that could give an in depth commentary about your working ethics. Don’t send it to 500+ contacts on your list but be selective to whom you chose. If need to, communicate with the person before you send the request. This is NOT a popularity contest with the most recommendations wins. Remember ‘Quality over Quantity‘.

request linkedin recommendations from your contacts


b)      How to backup your recommendations periodically?

One of the best features I love about LinkedIn is the backup facility. Users can backup profile details along with their client recommendations in .pdf format (with presentable layout). You can send this file to your potential clients, especially those who yet to own a LinkedIn account or unable to access your full professional data. Simply thoughtful!

backup linkedin profile details and recommendations


2.  Creative Portfolio Display – LinkedIn Application


Creative Portfolio Display is an application that allows creative professionals (graphic designers, photographers etc) to showcase their art work on LinkedIn. With just a click your contacts can view your complete portfolio and even rate it! This application is powered by Behance and I had been using it to showcase my facebook page customization work. Go ahead and see how the full Behance portfolio looks like. Maybe you can rate it too since you’re there? 🙂

behance creative portfolio display


3.  Add Video Testimonial or Portfolio – LinkedIn Profile


Slideshare makes it possible to publish video on Linkedin Profile. It supports .flv, .avi, .wmv and more formats can be found here. You can make it so to display your monthly client video testimonial (refer to point #6 in this post) or a compilation of the work you’ve done with dynamic content that is memorable and shareable.

upload video to linkedin profile with slideshare

The procedure is not complicated at all. Just upload your video to SlideShare or do so from your LinkedIn SlideShare application. Once your video is uploaded, fill up your video details and wait for the conversion to finish. When it’s done, go to ‘Your Slidespace’ -> ‘Your Presentations’ to check on your video status. Here is a video example I made for my facebook customization work:




Testimonials on Facebook Page


1.  Reviews – Facebook Application


You can request your fans/clients to review your service or company products via Reviews tab. Clients can update their reviews anytime, re-rate the service or delete their comments. They can even comment on other people’s feedback. As an admin, you can neither edit nor delete the content. It is an irony between getting fair reviews from all parties and the headaches when dealing with spammer/troller.

reviews application to request testimonials


2.  Custom Testimonial tab with Static FBML


If you prefer to have control over what have been said about your company service or website, why not personalize a Testimonial tab with Static FBML (iframe – coming soon)? You can customize and design the layout as you pleased with texts or images (non-editable), just as how I did for a client of mine:

testimonial tab with custom tab on facebook page

If you are not familiar with HTML, try a subtab instead from these ready-made facebook applications for custom tabs.

testimonials as subtab in fan page


To Collect Testimonials on a Facebook Fan Page

There are many ways you can acquire testimonials from clients or fans in a facebook page. Besides on your wall comments, why not setup a Testimonial form from one of these contact forms? Here is one I set up using Jotform:

testimonial submission in fan page


3.  Facebook Comments for a Custom Tab – Social Plugins


Facebook comments can be inserted in a custom tab to encourage responses about your service. For example, set a portfolio tab then embed the facebook comments to generate discussions and fans feedback. Best of all, you can have control over the comments by eliminating spammers with ‘Delete’or ‘Report’. That’s a plus comparing to Reviews tab.

facebook comments social plugin


4.  Other Feedback Applications – Under Observations (as Reference)


I was actually quite impressed with ‘Feedback Application’ but unfortunately it had ceased to operate since 1st December, 2010. Comparing to Reviews app, Feedback app gives admin extra advantage in feedback management, where bad ratings or hate comments can be hidden from page view. I was using it for a few weeks so worth a mention here.

feedback application to request ratings

I was looking for a replacement, that’s when I found User Voice. As you can see on Hootsuite’s facebook page it is performing rather well for fans to post suggestions, vote and comment on them. But still, it is more of an idea-collector tool instead of a rating app. I had been waiting for their beta invite for facebook tab embed since few weeks ago but no replies thus far. Not much to comment for now.

uservoice to replace feedback tab in facebook page


5.  Import Twitter Testimonials to your Facebook Page


If you are collecting Twitter Testimonials, you may import it to your Facebook page wall via selective tweets, TwitterFeed or Hootsuite. That way you fans can be updated as soon as your twitter followers had endorsed your work. Refer to this post on how to get it done.


Now Is Your Turn…


Have you been using any of the methods above to promote your brand? Or do you have a secret ‘testimonial’ recipe of your own? Enlighten us in the comments, love to hear from you!

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18 Comments

  1. Thanks!!

    Seems like you here answered my call from your last article 🙂

    From a Hotel point of view this is really valuable information. Knowing where and how to get review/feedback to your product/services.

    We have traditional review sites, but it is great to know how to utilize Social Media to extend their reach out.

    It will be even more crucial in the future to learn how we can take even more advantage of these trends. And maybe combine reviews with location based service. We want the reviews to be fresh and find new creative ways to take proper action steps when needed.

    Cheers.. Are

    1. Are,

      Thank you so much for the comment. I think it’s a great idea to combine geo-location apps along with the reviews. The beauty of social media is the service integration that creates an info-rich, sharing-friendly experience for visitors. Looking forward to more creative ideas on how each business can make full use of their testimonials for sure.

  2. Ching…these are great tips. I was unknown to most of these tips. Thanks a lot for sharing it all here. I really appreciate it. Keep writing 🙂

  3. Great tips indeed, I also had not seen some of these cool apps and need to use Slideshare more that’s for sure!

    I was also sad that the Feedback app went away.

    What would you recommend as the best Facebook tab creator if I wasn’t going to do my own up in FBML?

    1. Natalie, thanks so much for visiting. I have meant to try out slideshare for awhile now and so glad it actually supports video embed on LinkedIn.

      Yes, I miss Feedback app a great deal and still looking for a better substitute. Let’s hope they’ll come back again soon.

      It depends Natalie what kind of tab you are trying to create? Have you checked out some of these apps:
      https://wchingya.com/2010/11/welcome-sub-tabs-facebook-page.html

      Personally I find Iwipage and Pagemodo quite impressive, but Iwipage may be a little difficult to configure at first; Pagemodo on the other hand is very convenient – basically just drag and drop (no HTML knowledge needed). Tabsite is not bad too if you’re going for default social tabs as blog, Youtube, Twitter etc. I would say try them out and see if they match your tab requirements. Would love to know which could be your best pick among them. 🙂

  4. HI CHing ya,
    I love this..and have just added the reviews tab to my blogs facebook page! YAY!
    I’m always learning new stuff from you…and it might look like I know so much about the technical stuff..but its all form lovely people like you that i am learning. Thank you!
    If you get he chance…just check out if the reviews tab is right…i cant for the life of me figure out..if i need to ad or subtract anything from it.
    Love you lots,
    Z~

    1. Zeenat, the review tab is perfectly attached on your fan page. There is not much configurations can be done to it since it’s a ready facebook app, but all is good. I had just left a review for you too. 🙂 Good job!

  5. I’m bookmaking at delicious this excellent post when I’ll need testimonials from those social networking sites-especially from Facebook!

    Till now I’ve used twitter for a similar purpose.

    Terrific post Ching ya!

    Cheers,

    Gera

  6. I have been on LinkedIn for quite a while now even have some recommendations (not a lot). However, some of these tips are new to me as I am really not that savvy on LinkedIn and I know I should. Nothing beats a recommendations and one should leverage the advantage it brings. Will have to work on this soon. Great Ching as usual. have a great day

    1. DiTesco, sometimes writing about this pushes me to actually do more with my LinkedIn account too. So you’re not alone in this. Thanks again for dropping by.

  7. Is there a way to have a Testimonial page on WordPress that once a testimonial is filled out on WordPress, it flows directly to a dedicated Testimonial tab on my Facebook business page?

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