Are you utilizing your LinkedIn social selling strategy to the best of your ability?
If you work in sales or marketing, chances are you’re familiar with the concept of social selling. For the longest time, the biggest issue with social selling was being able to track your success rate and ROI. Knowing how to sell online is one thing, and knowing whether or not you’re doing a good job is another. That’s where LinkedIn’s social selling index comes in.
This article will outline the basics of LinkedIn’s social selling index, explain how your social selling index score is calculated, and give you three easy tips to improve your score so you can start utilizing it today.
Social selling is still a fairly new concept in the B2B world. It refers to the practice of using social media to build and foster online relations with prospects on social media. The focus of social selling is creating more authentic connections by putting your customers’ needs before your own, which in this case would be closing a sale.
Before LinkedIn’s social selling index score, it was difficult to measure the success of your social selling strategy in a uniform way. LinkedIn’s social selling index provides you with a unique score that is updated daily and allows you to identify areas of strength and weakness.
How to find your LinkedIn social selling index
Calculating your LinkedIn social selling index is very simple.
First, make sure you are logged into your LinkedIn account and then go to your LinkedIn social selling index dashboard. From there, you will be able to see a high-level overview of your LinkedIn social selling score, and dig into each scoring metric that makes up your overall SSI.
Because LinkedIn updates your SSI score daily, the LinkedIn social selling score dashboard also includes a week over week score tracker. And if you’re the competitive type, you can also track your LinkedIn SSI against people in your industry and your personal network.
How is your LinkedIn social selling index calculated?
What makes LinkedIn’s social selling index unique is the four-point scoring system they use to calculate your SSI.
How is my LinkedIn social selling index calculated?
- Establishing a personal brand
- Finding the right people to connect with
- Building relationships on LinkedIn
- Engaging with insights
The total score of your LinkedIn social selling index score is comprised of those four smaller metrics. Let’s break each of them down one by one:
1. Establishing a personal brand
LinkedIn defines establishing your personal brand as making yourself a thought-leader in your industry. You can do this by optimizing your LinkedIn profile using these LinkedIn profile tips and by creating and posting unique content to the platform.
2. Finding the right people to connect with
You can improve your LinkedIn social selling index score by tailoring your sales pitch to the right people. The more you prioritize finding warm leads, using LinkedIn’s research tools, and effectively building out your customer profiles, the higher this part of your score will be.
Tip: Having trouble convincing your leads to convert? Check out these tips for generating high-value B2B leads. |
3. Building relationships
Building relationships seems straightforward, but it’s important to know how LinkedIn qualifies relationship building. Connecting with people within your industry, building partnerships with high-ranking employees in different companies, and connecting internally with your own colleagues can boost this score.
4. Engaging with insights
Engaging with insights seems to be the trickiest for some to understand, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. LinkedIn calculates how “in the know” you are about your industry and news related to it. Sharing relevant news articles, commenting on other users posts, and participating in LinkedIn groups are just a few of the ways you can improve this score.
Why should you care about your LinkedIn social selling index?
The benefits of social selling are easy to see, but why should you focus on LinkedIn as a platform specifically? One of the obvious reasons is that it’s one of the largest B2B networks that professionals are using to date.
According to LinkedIn, here are the social selling index perks by the numbers:
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According to recent statistics, LinkedIn serves more than 260 million users every month and is the most-used social media platform among Fortune 500 companies. That means your potential customers are all out there on the same social platform waiting to hear from you.
Utilizing LinkedIn’s social selling index will provide you with an easy gut-check to see how you’re performing against your competition and what you can do to improve. Ignoring LinkedIn as part of your B2B sales or marketing strategy isn’t an option if you hope to be more successful than your competition.
3 tips to improve your LinkedIn social selling index
Are you ready to put everything you’ve learned into action? You don’t have to look any further. We’ve put together three easy tips you can implement today:
1. Optimize your LinkedIn profile
Before you start creating original content on LinkedIn, you’ll want to optimize your LinkedIn profile. Most people think having an updated LinkedIn account only matters when you’re job hunting but that’s a mistake.
Would you buy a product from someone trying to sell you something if they had an incomplete profile? You need to give people a reason to trust you if you’re planning to use LinkedIn to sell people.
6 ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile
- Update your profile picture and header
- Craft a compelling headline
- Rewrite your personal summary
- Keep your experience up-to-date
- Add your skills and certifications
- Gain endorsements from your peers
Think of your LinkedIn profile as your online business card. You should keep your LinkedIn profile updated because it helps people understand who you are and the value you bring to them.
2. Create original content
If you’re looking to improve your score around establishing your personal brand, it can be as simple as creating your own original content. LinkedIn is a platform that prioritizes user-generated content. Writing your own articles or filming an original video to upload into the platform will help kickstart your personal brand.
3. Connect the right way
Think of your LinkedIn connections the same way you would a Facebook friend. You wouldn’t add someone you’ve never met before to your personal Facebook page. So why should you expect a stranger to accept your LinkedIn request?
Take the time to build connections the right way. If you’re interested in connecting with someone you don’t know, start building that relationship by following their posts and commenting on them. Make yourself known and build a rapport before you ask for something. Remember to prioritize the social part of social media.
Social selling has never been so easy
Congratulations, you’re on your way to becoming a social selling expert! LinkedIn’s social selling index is just one of the tools you can use to polish your social selling game. If you’re curious to learn more you can read about how to gain quality leads with LinkedIn and G2.
Boost your social selling game with the most powerful intent data on the market. Start prospecting smarter with LinkedIn + G2. |