LinkedIn SSI (Social Selling Index) Explained

If you love to meet people, professionals, and prospects on social media, then you should consider LinkedIn. And if you hope to generate leads from your interactions on the platform, the LinkedIn SSI is your best bet.

LinkedIn has proven its worthiness; for businesses and executives who hope to gain quality prospects through their interactions on social media. 

Finally, a platform where professionals can feel at home without scrolling through pictures of friends and family and a couple more followers adds very little or nothing to your dreams of social selling. 

Social Selling and LinkedIn SSI

Social selling refers to the use of social media to connect with people, nurture prospects, and convert your connections to possible buyers. If you are a sales professional on Linkedin, you would want to increase your chances of generating leads and closing sales.

LinkedIn SSI is your sure-fire tool to see the rank of your social selling strategies and seek ways to improve.

What is LinkedIn SSI

LinkedIn SSI is an acronym for the “Social Selling Index.” LinkedIn introduced this index in 2014; to measure how brands (individuals and businesses) rank in their followers’ minds. It’s a method through which LinkedIn measures your social selling strategies and activities. 

In other words, it is the weighing balance for social selling on LinkedIn. So, If you hope to generate leads on social media through LinkedIn, the SSI is a must-have tool. 

LinkedIn calls it the “first-of-its-kind” technology, which they use in measuring how professionals rank in their social selling strategies. And to access this index, you would have to be subscribed to their Sales Navigator.

Now that you know about the Linkedin SSI, we will explain how it works.

How to see your LinkedIn SSI Score

Knowing your SSI score on Linkedin will show you how high or low you rank with your social selling strategies. And also, help you improve on the vital areas that you should. The good thing is that it is updated daily, so you get to know when you’re making progress or not.

To view your SSI score, login to your LinkedIn dashboard, or click here.

Now that you know your SSI score, You’d want to know if its good enough or not.

What is a Good SSI score?

LinkedIn SSI score claims that; the higher a user scores, the more successful the person will get at reaching their sales goals. They claim that people who are highly active on LinkedIn gain 45% more sales opportunities than those who are not active and are also 51% more likely to hit their quotas and are 80% more productive.

As we mentioned earlier, LinkedIn measures your SSI score using the four pillars of social selling. A good SSI score is based on how well you use your social selling strategies, the average scores of people in your industry, and the average scores of people in your network. 

Although this is not a guarantee to increase sales or generate more leads, undoubtedly, there is a strong connection between the level of success from social selling and how you increase your opportunities at prospecting.

Therefore, it is a good thing to know how to utilize your social selling strategies so that you can increase your sales.

How Linkedin SSI is Calculated

Linkedin calculates your social selling strength on a scale of 0-100. It has four parts; each part gives you a maximum of 25 points. These four parts are known as the four pillars of social selling on Linkedin.

How to Improve your SSI Score

The four pillars of social selling are the metrics by which your interaction with people you follow and people who follow you are measured on LinkedIn. A good review of these four pillars can improve your social selling score and also, help you generate leads and drive more sales from your connections.

The four pillars of social selling are:

1. Establish a professional brand
2. Finding the right people
3. Engage with insights
4. Build strong relationships

Establish a professional brand

Do you intend to build connections with prospects on LinkedIn? Then, this should be the first step in your social selling journey. Does your LinkedIn profile represent what you want your prospects to see? Or does your profile look like that of a teenager on Snapchat? 

Tweak your LinkedIn profile to fit the professional brand that you represent. 

Remember that the people you will connect with can only relate with you based on your relationship with them. Your company’s or business LinkedIn account might not do the trick. 

To create a professional brand on LinkedIn, you can start with editing the following features on your profile:

• Profile picture
• Headline
• Summary
• Experience
• Education
• Skill

Profile picture

This is your identity on LinkedIn. Upload a clear and professional-looking picture of yourself. Using abstract photos or pictures of birds or animals doesn’t put you in a professional light. Nobody wants to connect with a pigeon or a dog on LinkedIn. People are more open to connecting with you when they can put a face to the name of the person they’re interacting with.

Your profile picture must not be a professional headshot, but it should be a picture you’d be proud of. To be on a safer side, use a professional headshot – with a friendly expression. 

Headline

Your headline should be short and simple but strong and catchy. It should tell who you are as a professional. For instance, If you’re the sales manager at A and B International Company, this is where you sell yourself to your prospects. 

It is not a space for “Passionate, hardworking, and calm under pressure.” Your headline should do the convincing, so put that passion into making it worthy.

Summary

Your summary should be a concise description of who you are. It is where you outline your achievements, places, and people you’ve worked with over the years. Your summary should further sell you as a brand, but not the product you are selling. 

Your summary should show you as a confident professional but avoid bragging.

Experience

People are more comfortable when they know that they are connecting with an experienced professional. Here, you can outline your job experience, starting with the most recent as the first. List your accomplishments using bulleted points. Your experience should be brief and straight to the point. 

You can ask people you’ve worked with for references. A positive reference from your recent colleagues goes a long way to convince your prospects.

Education 

Add your educational qualifications and institutions where you attended. Your alumnus could be your prospects; they’d feel safer and more comfortable doing business with you. 

Moreover, professionals on LinkedIn would prefer to connect with intellectuals, so you have to let them know that you are qualified to catch their interest.

Skills

Outline your skills to match your professional profile. List the skills you have gained over the years and relevant to your profession. These could also convince your prospects that you know your onions. 

LinkedIn is for professionals, and your profile is the first port of call when they connect with you. Give them a reason to stay!

Find the Right People

Create a list of your target prospects. Follow the professionals, companies, or individuals that you would want to connect with so that you would get their updates in your feed. Follow people that share similar interests with you.

With that, you can tell their likes, whom they follow, and posts they interact with. Create a relationship with them and get to know more about them. These can serve as leverage if you aim to prospect and generate leads on Linkedin.

If meeting people is fun for you, then you can also generate leads and increase sales for fun.

What’s next?

Engage with Insights

Linkedin measures your ability to interact and initiate conversations through the following metrics; contents you post on your feed, the number of likes, comments, and shares you receive, as well as incoming and outgoing texts on your Direct message.

That said, you have to follow people with whom your ideas align. And post regularly on your feed to interact with people in your connection. With that, you can tell what your followers react to and create more articles on the areas that attract them. In turn, they like your posts, comment and share with others, and indirectly draw more followers to your profile.

Yes! LinkedIn is just like all other social media platforms. And to boost your LinkedIn SSI, you have to engage people with valuable content. 

It is not an avenue for post automation, as LinkedIn is quite sneaky with their ranking. You just have to be yourself and show your face from time to time, at least 2-3 times weekly.

This does not mean that you would have to always post lengthy articles on your feed. You can do that once in a while. Try to comment on posts of professionals that you follow and connect with people. Like and also repost their articles. By doing so, you get to interact with their followers and can improve your SSI score.

Build Strong Relationship

Relationships are the fourth pillar of the social selling index. This is determined by how you do with finding the right people and engaging with insights.

You create a relationship when you find the right people and spend time connecting with them on LinkedIn. Your connections relate more with you when you post content that applies to them and when they can relate to your post. It’s more like a “hand me the milk, and I will make you cheese” kind of relationship.

This pillar measures your ability to network with professionals in your field- these are the people who can introduce you to qualified prospects. The matrix of building strong relationships depends on the people you search, connections you accept, people who view your profiles, and how active you are on the platform.

To be active on LinkedIn, you can dedicate 15-30 minutes of your time daily on LinkedIn. Studies show that people are more active on LinkedIn during lunchtime or commute time. Study the activity pattern of your connections.

Thankfully, there is a feature to indicate when a connection is online. Post on your feed. Like, comment and share insightful posts that align with your interests. Reply to messages and build a stronger relationship with your connections. 

The number of strong relationships you have with people in your niche indirectly determines the number of prospects you are likely to meet. And the level of your friendship also determines how they would respond to your offer.

Nobody loves a cold call, but not when it comes from a friend. There is always a clause for exceptions.

In Summary…

For some people, LinkedIn SSI is just a tool introduced by LinkedIn to sell Sales Navigator. It is not surprising that people who score higher and some people don’t. However, it is a way to increase sales leads and, inadvertently, gain more quality prospects. 

However, LinkedIn SSI is just one tool, and the SSI score is just a number. Your success rate is only measured with the actions you’ve put into place to level up your social selling skills. Your score isn’t what generates leads for you. A positive sales result depends on your sales strategies.

You can read more on ways to improve your SSI score and increase your chances of closing sales.

Always bear in mind that the best social selling strategies don’t just end online. It should be a mixture of online and offline prospecting. You can also check our article on fanatical prospecting to help you increase your chances when prospecting.