A referral can be defined as the act of recommending someone or something to a customer, client, or business. When we think about referrals on Alignable, it can happen in a number of ways:

1. Referral Requests: Referral requests are posts you share on your home feed, local discussions, or groups where you can specifically ask other businesses on Alignable to refer a business that fits the description you are looking for.

   

2. Recommendations: Recommendations are when you write a recommendation for another business on their profile. If that recommendation is accepted by the business that received it, it will be displayed on their profile. Because of this, every time someone visits that profile in the future, they will see that recommendation. And thus, we consider a recommendation a referral.
   
   

3. Referral Cards: Referral cards are essentially digital business cards you can use to share your own or someone else's business information with another business, client, or customer. When you share a referral card, we'll consider that a referral as well. You can learn here how to share referral cards.
   
   
   
   

4. Likes & Shares: When another member likes or shares a product or service, event or promotion, or recommendation that is visible on your profile, that content will be automatically shared with their network and thus we consider that a referral.
   
   
   
   

Remember, referrals will likely happen if you build and nurture relationships with people that trust you. If you stay top of mind with the people that trust you, they'll think of you as the person they want to refer to others when they know someone who has a need for what you offer.