Product recommendations can be useful to both buyers and sellers, putting good offerings in the spotlight and helping sales proceed.  LinkedIn members may be happy (if surprised) to hear, then, that the network has started to show product recommendations on companies’ profile pages.

You can see an example of how this works below.  While a little different from what you might expect of a site designed for professional networking, it shouldn’t turn LinkedIn into a messy hub for shoppers.

Indeed, this move is just supposed to help professionals reach wise decisions when it comes to making purchases.  After all, there may be little sense trying out some random business solution if everyone in a given industry swears by a different service.

The change will also allow members to show off their good judgment in the event they decide to leave reviews.

As for what companies should think, a post on the LinkedIn Blog explained, "Company pages now allows you to showcase recommendations from your customers and helps build your brand virally and credibly on LinkedIn. . . .  When you promote and curate these recommendations, you have some of the most credible, authentic endorsements of your products on your Company Page’s Product tab."

The upgrade is off to a good start.  AT&T, Dell, E*Trade, HP, Microsoft, and Samsung (among others) have already chosen to put the new product recommendations on their companies’ pages.