Back in 2012, LinkedIn launched its endorsements feature, which lets users endorse others for various skills. Lots of endorsements in key areas can make a member look good when they’re looking for a related job, a partnership, or other career-related opportunity.
The feature quickly became popular, and users have racked up countless endorsements in the years since.
Now, Facebook is reportedly testing a very similar feature. While the one below is for a dog, it shows the basic concept:
You can label qualities of your Facebook friends in profile tags. What is this, Linkedin personality endorsements? pic.twitter.com/6JWz18pC97
— Melissa Low (@mellowNZ) July 23, 2015
The Verge confirmed that the company is testing it, reporting:
Verge reader Luke M. alerted us to Facebook’s new profile tags feature, and the company confirmed it was testing them out with the following statement: “Profile tags are a creative tool that lets you and your friends add tags to your profile to highlight the things that describe you and what you’re into.” Created as part of an internal Facebook hackathon, the new feature will let you add tags to your own profile, or let your friends add tags for you, which you must approve before they become publicly visible. Tags are free-form, which means you can type in pretty much whatever you want, even including emojis.
Once the feature is rolled out to everyone, friends can add tags by going to your profile and tagging you using words or phrases that describe you, or what you do (“happy camper”, “thinker”, “graphic artist,” etc.) You’ll receive a notification, prompting you to accept or decline your tags. If you accept, the tags become visible to everyone; if you decline, the tags disappear. Or you could just ignore the notification (cough, just like you do with certain friend requests), and the tags will remain pending, visible only to you and the friend who tagged you. Once approved, other friends can “like” your tags, which will appear in descending order by the number of likes.
It’s unclear if Facebook’s intent with this feature is to actually cater to the professional market. It seems to be presenting it as more of a “just for fun” kind of thing. Even still, it’s very possible that businesses looking at potential hires’ Facebook profiles will take note. What’s not as likely is that the majority of people will actually use it for real professional endorsements.
I have no doubt that some will, but many will probably use it in a more “fun” or just flat out unprofessional manner. That is if this even becomes a real feature.
Facebook would no doubt like to add a professional layer (it’s already trying out Facebook at Work), but considering that LinkedIn is thought of specifically as a place for business, it’s probably safe from this kind of Facebook attack.
Still, it’s worth noting that LinkedIn is capturing more and more attention from marketers when it comes to their social media efforts.
It’s also worth noting that, like Facebook, LinkedIn is trying to become your go-to source for news. Make no mistake, there is some competition here.
Image via LinkedIn