The LinkedIn Feature You've Never Heard Of That Could Transform Your Social Selling Strategy - SSI Score

As an Account Executive, I've come to appreciate the power of LinkedIn as a tool for building relationships, identifying prospects, and engaging in valuable conversations, as well as a way to express my professionalism and evolve my personal brand. This is what social selling is all about.

One feature that has significantly transformed my approach to social selling is LinkedIn's Social Selling Index (SSI). Maybe you aren't familiar with it, but I'm here to change that and show you just how amazing it is.

The SSI is a measure of a user's social selling performance on LinkedIn, scored on a scale from 0 to 100.

It's built around four key activities: establishing a professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships.

Establishing a Professional Brand

Establishing a professional brand is about creating a profile that resonates with your target audience. It's about optimizing your profile with the end-user, customer, or client in mind. This involves posting relevant articles that correspond to your industry and the types of professionals you're looking to attract. The content can be either curated from trusted sources or original posts.

The goal is to establish yourself as a thought leader in your field.

I've discovered that a polished profile and engaging posts not only attract potential customers, but also establish me as a respected expert in my industry.

How to improve your score? fill out all profile sections, Include a photo, Increase your endorsements, share high-quality relevant content, write long-form posts related to your professional experience.

Finding the Right People

Knowing who you're looking for and the keywords that relate to them is crucial. LinkedIn has search tools that help you find your ideal prospect according to your ICP, and build better connections. I've found that identifying the right people not only improves my SSI score but also enhances the quality of my network. Better engagements, more suitable prospects, more deals/job offers/exposure - whatever you aim for.

How to improve your score? Carry out advanced account searches, save leads, view people’s profiles, look at who’s viewed?your?profile, and try to log in at least once a day.

Engaging with Insights

Engagement is all about connections. Engaging with insights is a great way to find similar people both in your industry and in the industry of your ideal client. I try to find similar people in similar roles or more "connection-friendly" people to connect with (Sales, HR etc.), always second-degree connections.

You can always think of joining relevant groups that can help you share and establish your expertise in a non-salesy way, fostering meaningful conversations and relationships. This has not only improved my SSI score but also enriched my network with valuable connections.

How to improve your score? Following relevant industry or topic hashtags e.g. #socialselling, join relevant groups, likes, comments and reposts, and save accounts.

Building Relationships

The final component of the SSI is about strengthening your network by connecting and establishing trust with decision-makers. As an Account Executive, this is crucial. I've learned that building strong, trust-based relationships is key to successful social selling. According to LinkedIn, 73% of B2B buyers prefer sales professionals who have been referred by someone they know, with the percentage increasing to 87% when the intro was made through someone in their professional network. This underscores the importance of building strong, trust-based relationships across all levels of an organization.

How to improve your score? Increase the total number of Connections, Vice President level + connections and?Internal connections (with others within your company). Acceptance rate percentage also plays a part here.

Some Numbers

LinkedIn reports that social selling leaders create 45% more opportunities than peers with lower SSI. They are 51% more likely to reach quota, and 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media. These statistics underscore the importance of a high SSI score.

My current SSI score is 72 out of 100, placing me in the top 1% of professionals in my industry and the top 8% in my network. However, it's not about chasing a higher score; it's about using the insights provided by SSI score to enhance my LinkedIn strategy and become a more effective social seller.

A Short Summary

In conclusion, investing in your LinkedIn SSI score pays off. LinkedIn is a great platform for building meaningful connections, interacting with prospects and decision-makers, and growing your sales pipeline. However, it doesn’t happen overnight and requires consistent effort. Increasing your LinkedIn Social Selling Index score gives you a chance to increase your exposure and make sure your posts are relevant to your target audience.

Monitor it regularly to assess the performance of your efforts. I try to review it at least once a month to monitor my progress. I recommend using the SSI as an indicator of social selling :)

Want to check your own SSI? Use this link or go to your Sales Navigator Menu (See the picture below)

It's now up to you to increase your SSI score. Good luck!

And thanks Liat Netanel for sharing this feature with me!

Sources:

This article by Karlyn Ankrom - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-find-your-linkedin-ssi-score-karlyn-williams/

This article by Kasia Kowalska - https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/linkedins-social-selling-index

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