A guide to the LinkedIn Social Selling Index

Yielding the power of LinkedIn goes far beyond simply clicking on the ‘Connect’ button and multiplying the size of your professional network. To truly master the platform, you need to understand your LinkedIn Social Selling Index and learn how to pull the levers to become a voice of authority in your industry.

It can feel overwhelming at first, but there’s a sea of professionals on LinkedIn that you can connect with and learn from.Simultaneously, there’s also fierce competition to stand out in your field. To avoid sitting for hours on end crafting the perfect LinkedIn post or going on a networking binge, we’ll give you the insights needed so you don’t feel like you’re walking on quicksand when trying to network online.

What does SSI stand for? How can I build a professional personal brand? How can I build better relationships with my network? These are some of the questions we’ll answer in this LinkedIn SSI crash course. By the next time you log into LinkedIn, you should feel like you’re navigating the platform with a top-quality networking GPS in hand.

What is LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index?

LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index (SSI) measures how skilled you are at social selling on the platform. It’s a score out of 100 and is calculated based on how well you establish your personal brand, whether you’re finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships. Each of these individual factors are measured on a scale of 25.

Overall, you can take the SSI to be a measure of the strength of your profile and your presence on LinkedIn. So, the higher your score is, the more likely you’re a LinkedIn celebrity.

Why is the LinkedIn SSI score important for small businesses selling on LinkedIn?

Although it’s just a number, your LinkedIn SSI can be pretty important for your small business. A higher score tells you that you have a wider reach on the platform and it can mean your marketing strategy is succeeding as planned.

To help convince you that you should care, according to LinkedIn, the higher the user’s score, the more successful that person or company is at reaching their sales goals. In fact, leading social sellers on LinkedIn create 45% more opportunities than lower social sellers, are 51% more likely to reach their quotas, and are 80% more productive. Therefore, the SSI will give you hints as to where you can improve your LinkedIn marketing efforts, helping you reach more customers and become an authoritative brand.

What are the LinkedIn Social Selling Index metrics?

• Establishing your professional brand: this factor looks at how complete your profile is and the quality of the content you’re posting. Basically, the more populated your profile is with the right amount of information, the better your score will be in this arena. Therefore, you want to make sure you have a cover photo, a complete job history, recommendations, and a profile description. You’ll also want to create posts that get multiple views and comments.
• Finding the right people: blindly going on a connecting spree is not the solution to scoring high in this category. This aspect looks at whether you’re using LinkedIn’s tools to find the right people, reach out to them successfully, and create systems and automation to make the process more efficient. However, reaching the heights of this category requires you to use the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which will be tough for free users. Keep in mind the Sales Navigator Advanced costs £110 per month when billed annually.
• Engaging with insights: this factor entails sharing the insights of others, interacting with posts, reaching out to connections, and publishing your own relevant content. The more content you share and the more views, likes, and comments you receive, the better your score.
• Build relationships: this factor measures how truly ‘connected’ you are with your connections. To receive a high score in this category, you should be reaching out often and successfully to people in your network and beyond, nurturing your professional connections beyond a LinkedIn connection.

What is a good or bad SSI score for a small business?

Generally, a good LinkedIn SSI score is 70 points or above. If you’re sitting between 40 and 70, this means you’re on the right path, but you definitely have some things to work on and some areas to tweak. Anything below 40 points is poor and means you’re probably not that active on LinkedIn.

How can I increase my business SSI score?

If you’ve followed the link to your SSI dashboard and got an unfortunate surprise, or you’re not that happy with your score, there’s a number of ways in which you can boost your SSI.

• Fill out your LinkedIn profile completely: make sure you add a profile picture, fill out your job title, add a helpful keyword-rich summary, add education and skills, request recommendations from colleagues and clients, and add examples of your work in the features section. Make sure your LinkedIn is populated with all the information a possible client or connection might want to know so they get a rich snapshot of who you are as a professional.
• Connect with the right people on LinkedIn: just because you have thousands of connections, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have a stronger presence on LinkedIn. Don’t just send invites to random people. Instead, take the time to find people you know personally, who are thought leaders in your sector, or work in your sector. The more cohesion your network has, the better. You can use LinkedIn’s advanced search functionality to find the right people to connect with.
• Post quality content targeted for LinkedIn users: think about what insights or content your network might need or want to know. The better you understand your target audience, the stronger your personal brand will be. Targeted, quality content will make it more likely that your network will engage with your posts, boosting your personal brand score.
• Join and be active on relevant LinkedIn Groups: just like Facebook, LinkedIn has tons of niche groups that are industry specific, spaces where you can engage with your network and understand what your sector is currently discussing. Engaging in these groups will give you clues as to what content might be useful to post and identify gaps in thought leadership in your industry that you can fill.
• Engage with your network and beyond: have more interactions beyond just connecting with someone. Reach out to them through direct messages, engage with their posts, and share insights. This will help cement long-term professional relationships that will help boost your SSI score.

How can your business use the LinkedIn SSI score?

At first glance the SSI may seem like a trivial number, but it does have lots of value for small businesses – it’s way more than just a vanity metric.

• Measures your personal brand: the SSI can help you measure your personal brand so you can understand the actionable steps you need to take to strengthen it. Every improvement you make can result in an increased score.
• Benchmarking tool: the tool automatically compares your profile to other people in your industry and your network. This gives you a quick glance at where you currently stand vis a vis others in your sector, and how hard you need to work to climb closer to the top.
• Informs your marketing strategy: in addition to telling you how authoritative your brand is in your sector, the SSI also tells you how efficient your marketing strategy is on LinkedIn. The more engaged you are with your network, the more likely it is you are establishing trust and laying the groundwork for conversions. Therefore, boosting your SSI score can help you understand how you can improve your digital marketing strategy and translate your efforts into more sales.

Conclusion

Boosting your SSI score is not supposed to be rocket science. As long as you plant the right seeds by finding the right people, filling in your profile, and sharing valuable industry insights, you’ll eventually grow a strong networking tree. LinkedIn is a powerful social selling tool, so as long as you understand the mechanisms of the SSI, you’ll be equipped to build a stronger network and a robust sales record.