LinkedIn Social Selling Index: what it is, why you need it, and how to score high

Gone are the days when LinkedIn was just there to serve the purpose of an online CV. These days, the platform has grown in leaps and bounds to become the biggest social media platform dedicated to businesses, brands, and professionals. With more than 610 million members from all around the world, that is just logical. With this growth has come more and more metrics – and one you should always focus on is your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI).

What is your LinkedIn SSI?
Your social selling index, simply put, is a measure of how well your profile and personal branding can sell what you represent to others on the platform. In other words, the SSI is an aggregate of your profile strength, helping to determine how well your profile can represent you and your brand, if applicable, to leads and other connections on the platform.

This means that the SSI is very important if you ever have the intention of:

  • Attracting users with like mind
  • Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your field
  • Representing yourself (and a brand, where applicable) by putting your best foot forward always and
  • Creating the perfect magnet that attracts available leads to your profile, among other things.

If what we see around today is anything to go by, it is sure that a generous percentage of those using LinkedIn has one or more of the above goals in mind to be using the service.

Boosting your SSI

If you have never thought about it before, the good news is that now is as good a time as any to make moves as regards your SSI. Looking at the metrics by which LinkedIn calculates this score, here are a couple of ways to get your score up in no time:

1. Build a complete profile

LinkedIn is very big on ensuring its users have a complete profile, and that goes into boosting your SSI too. If you don’t already have a professional header image, now is the time to change all that with some quality headshot of yourself. Afterward, fill in your experience, a summary of your profile and have a headline to match.

It doesn’t stop there, though. It’s one thing to claim knowledge of a field – and another to have such knowledge. Thus, you would have to create meaningful, thought-leadership content to match too.

2. Connect right

LinkedIn is interested in seeing people make connections across the platform, but not just any kind of connection. Build solid relationships with 2nd degree connections, seek out groups of like-minded people to join and engage with users who have come across your profile.

3. Build engagement

This is a tricky section, and you are unlikely to score high if you are not a member of the LinkedIn premium family. However, you can always do your part by interacting with content which your connections post. This shows that you are interested in the platform, not just putting your content out there for people to see.

If you have done all the above right, the fourth part – building the right connections – should be added to you almost instantly. After defining your profile and linking up with the right people, building solid connections and relationships should come as a bonus.

With all these in tow, you’re on your way to a better SSI.

Using LinkedIn for outbound prospecting will boost your SSI from all avenues. With an in-house expert, we can help to build you a complete profile that performs to the highest standard. We then help you to build a network of valuable and meaningful connections and start those relationships, by reaching out to the people in your target market at scale. This then inevitably improves engagement on your LinkedIn content, as there are hundreds more eyes on your posts, all people who can buy from or work with you, so they interact.

All of this is just one of the side benefits of outbound LinkedIn lead generation. It’s a time consuming exercise, so it’s a perfect solution you’re looking for a way to boost your Social Selling Index whilst also generating direct sales calls every month. We connect you with hundreds of people in your target market every month, for more information on how effective this would be for you, contact one of the team on 0161 503 7654.