How good do you think you are at selling? Did you know that LinkedIn can tell you? It’s true! The LinkedIn Social Selling Index is an epic tool for better understanding, and ranking, your online presence, and seeing how you can improve it.
What is your Social Selling Index (SSI)?
Your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) measures how effective you are at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships. Your score is updated every day, giving you ample opportunities to improve. You can calculate your SSI on LinkedIn to get great insights into how you rank against others in your industry and your peers too. Think of your LinkedIn Social Selling Index rating as your LinkedIn report card. LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index gives you a score out of 100, and key insights into how you’re performing in relation to other people in your network and industry.
Why should you care about your SSI?
Getting your LinkedIn game up to scratch is a balance of content, engagement, and analysing your metrics. Your LinkedIn Social Selling Index is another metric you should check on, at least once a week (although it does update every day!) Your SSI score can provide valuable insights into your LinkedIn strategy and help you to identify areas for improvement in your social selling efforts. Remember, metrics matter, and you can use them to improve your performance, bolster your reputation, and grow your personal brand in highly effective ways.
Key components of your SSI
To calculate your Social Selling Index, LinkedIn analyses four key components. Those four components encompass how you:
- Establish your professional brand: This is all about how you have created a strong, credible LinkedIn presence. Your profile is your digital handshake, and in the world of social selling, first impressions matter more than ever. Ensure your profile is complete with a professional photo, a compelling headline that clearly communicates your value proposition, and a summary that showcases your expertise and achievements. Don’t be shy about highlighting your successes. Your LinkedIn profile is not the place to be overly modest!
- Find the right people: This measures how well you’re using LinkedIn’s search and research tools to identify prospects. How you find the right people is not about connecting with everyone and anyone. It’s about finding the right people who are most likely to benefit from your product or service. You can use LinkedIn’s advanced search features to find decision-makers in your target industries. Look for common connections and shared interests that can help you establish a rapport. Remember, quality will always trump quantity. It’s better to have meaningful connections with 100 ideal prospects than superficial connections with 1000 random people.
- Engage with insights: This may be the hardest metric to get right in terms of your LinkedIn Social Selling Index. It’s not enough to simply find the right people. You need to engage with them in a meaningful way. That doesn’t mean immediately pitching your product as soon as you connect! Instead, focus on adding value. Comment on your connections’ posts with thoughtful insights, and share relevant content that addresses their pain points or challenges. Your LinkedIn notifications feed is your guide here, as it helps you stay up-to-date and well-informed about what’s happening across your network.
- Build relationships: After all, LinkedIn was created to help you build meaningful relationships. This metric measures how well you’re nurturing professional relationships. The way you build relationships goes far beyond simply connecting, and further into how you build genuine, trust-based relationships. Respond promptly to messages and connection requests. To get this metric pumping, engage in conversations with people, without trying to sell them your products or services. Look for opportunities to introduce people in your network to each other. Aim to be the person who knows someone that someone else should meet! Being a connector can significantly boost your perceived value.
Use your SSI to improve your LinkedIn performance
Metrics are great, but what should you do next? I’ll break it down for you. If your “establish your professional brand” score is low, focus on optimising your profile and sharing more valuable content. If “find the right people” is your weak spot, spend more time using LinkedIn’s search tools and joining relevant groups. Low scores in “engage with insights” or “build relationships” might indicate that you’re not being active enough on LinkedIn. Make a concerted effort to comment on posts, share insights, and engage in meaningful conversations. Yes, that means making time for LinkedIn in your diary, every day.
Your SSI and your sales performance
LinkedIn’s research has shown a strong correlation between SSI scores and sales performance. Sales professionals with high SSI scores are 51% more likely to hit their quotas than those with lower scores. Let’s remember though, that a high SSI score alone won’t magically boost your sales. What it does indicate is that you’re effectively using LinkedIn as a tool to build your brand, connect with prospects, share valuable insights, and nurture relationships. These are all important parts of building your personal brand and successfully selling through your LinkedIn activity.
Improving your LinkedIn Social Selling Index score is a slow burn and not a sprint. The metric will give you key insights into how your performance can be improved, and where you are improving. Celebrate your small improvements and be patient with yourself. Consistency is key. It’s better to spend 15 minutes on LinkedIn each day than to binge for hours once a week. Here’s to growing your LinkedIn Social Selling Index score!
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