There is an influence principle from Robert B. Cialdini book: Influence that says that you are more likely to be able to influence people if they like you. This is stating the obvious. How do we get liked? That is a tougher question. Well, there are scientific studies demonstrating that regular exposure to photos of someone will make that person more familiar to us and we tend to like more what is familiar to us than what is unfamiliar. Unconvinced that this is true? Try to guess why during election we have a picture of every politicians at each intersection?
In the context of LinkedIn, a very simple way to have your name exposed to a lot of people is to congratulate people. It is so simple that you should systematically do it everytime you go on LinkedIn. For better result, you should do it daily. Watch the video for a demonstration on how to do it.
What it will do:
In both cases, this may result into positive things for you:
Concerning the endorsements, I have a question (and be honest about the answer...): When you give an endorsement to someone, is it strictly based on technical merit or you must, at some level, like the person to endorse him? Now, imagine that you congratulated, wish happy birthday and underline every other important events to someone you know, how much more likely the person is to endorse you?
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