How To Boost Your Social Selling Index

Because of this, there may be no better platform to get started with social selling. The social selling index LinkedIn offers is a pioneer for all types of businesses to get better acquainted with taking their businesses online and engaging with leads on social media platforms. 

What is Social Selling? 

Social selling is the modern way for brands and potential customers to form relationships. Companies can use social media to get connected with prospects. This can be useful in both B2C and B2B sales if you understand how to get people’s attention. 

It may be hard to figure out how to sell yourself on social media. Successful social sellers utilize a lot of balance and understanding of their target audience. It is easy to think that in order to get the most leads, you need to get as much information out there as possible to as many people as you can. Too much content will be seen as spam. Social selling requires you to get in the mind of the consumer and consider what would make you say yes to a company trying to sell to you online. This is why social selling tools like your SSI can be extremely beneficial for understanding how to sell using social media. 

Building your Ideal Customer Profile

An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a great brainstorming tool to establish what your target audience on LinkedIn looks like. You should consider making one of these and referencing it before making posts, sending lead-generating messages, or altering your profile. 

When you and your team are creating your ICP, you should consider the following questions about your target audience: 

• What is your customer’s job?
• What content would they want to see on LinkedIn?
• What are they looking for as a consumer?
• What is their unique path to purchase?
• What may hold them back from making a purchase?

Understanding Your SSI Score

LinkedIn’s social selling index is full of numbers, percentages, and pie charts. Without understanding what it means, this information will be useless to you. Let’s break down what each section means and how you can use them to your advantage: 

Industry and Network SSI Ranks

This section will show you how you compare to relevant people on LinkedIn. Your industry SSI compares your profile and its success with others in the same field, while the network SSI rank compares you to your connections. Your network rank can also help you see if you have made quality connections. Ideally, you want to rank high in your industry but rank somewhere in the middle of your network. 

Current Social Selling Index

This is arguably the most important section. As the name suggests, it is the part that tells you your score. Here you can see your personal pie chart with four key components: 

• Establish your personal brand
• Find the right people
• Engage with insights
• Build relationships

This is how LinkedIn determines your score. You can see in the chart which components you are doing best in, and where you need more work. It will give you a score out of 100. 

People in your Industry and Network

This section shows the average pie chart breakdowns for both your industry and your network. You can use this to see where you are outperforming your peers and what areas people are focusing the most on. This section will also show you if your standings amongst your peers have changed since the previous week, giving you a way to measure what has been working and what hasn’t

The Four Components of Your SSI Score on LinkedIn

The Current Social Selling Index section of your SSI score shows your pie chart in four essential categories. Let’s explore what these mean, and how understanding them can give you an advantage on LinkedIn. 

Establish Your Professional Brand

Your credibility on LinkedIn matters. People want to know that they can turn to you for reliable information. This reliability is reflected in your social selling index. Establishing your personal brand means demonstrating to the other members of LinkedIn that you are a dedicated and insightful part of your industry. 

Find the Right People

Having a lot of high-quality connections on LinkedIn is important for both social selling and for your SSI score. The more connections you have, the more second and third-degree connections you will have. In other words, you will gain access to the connections people in your network are connected to. This means you will have access to more people, which will give you more opportunities for generating leads. 

Engage with Insights

To simplify this, engaging with insights means interacting with posts. LinkedIn will sometimes also refer to this as curated content. You’ll want to share posts, like, comment, and reach out to your connections. Congratulating people on their achievements, or simply wishing them a happy birthday, can also boost your score. LinkedIn wants to see how you are using the platform to connect and build relationships, and being engaged with the features the site offers is a good way to measure this. Be sure to keep things balanced. Post your own original and informative content while reading and interacting with the content of others in your network. 

Build Relationships

Of course, it’s not all about gathering the most connections, it’s about connecting with them and creating business relationships. Join groups on LinkedIn that are relevant to you and start or join in on conversations. Go to people who work for companies that could benefit from your business and work to arrange a partnership. 

How Important is the Social Selling Index?

The score shown in the social selling index is beneficial to most LinkedIn users looking to make sales, but it is possible that the algorithms and metrics don’t quite understand your method of sale. If you are getting results and your score does not reflect this, then, of course, you should continue working your own way. The score should be used as a guide, not as a hard rule. 

The importance of the index depends on the user. It is designed to help you understand the goals of LinkedIn as a platform. It will guide your hand if you are struggling to reach your sales goals. 

Key Takeaways

The LinkedIn social selling index works by examining your profile with four different areas of focus: 

• The presentation of your professional brand
• The quality of your connections
• Your activity and utilization of LinkedIn’s features
• Your ability to bond with the people in your network

Your score on the social selling index can show you a lot of important insights that may improve your social sell. Use it as a guide for understanding what works for your brand and what doesn’t. 

Social Selling With Expert Help

Generate sales and communicate with leads the easy way with advanced AI technology and expert staff at Sales Booster. For LinkedIn lead generation assistance and more, contact Sales Booster in the form below for a free demo.