Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn Social Selling Index

I was thrilled to recently have received a positive testimonial from an attendee of one of my recent LinkedIn training sessions saying:

“I’m really enjoying LinkedIn at the moment and after recently attending a training event by the knowledgeable Nigel Cliffe, I found a great little gem of a tool built into LinkedIn that measures your personal brand across your network, low and behold I’m now at a 76% and perfecting my profile regularly!”

The very purpose of LinkedIn is to share insights and ideas that will help make the lives of those in your network easier. So, in the spirit of imparting advice and tips, I thought I’d draw your attention to the often underused and under-valued LinkedIn asset that my Connection, market consultant, Daniel Cooke, alludes to in his kind review above.

The tool in question is the LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI). The handy tool gives you an overall score out of 100 that is unique to you based on how effectively you use LinkedIn for the purposes the platform was intended for – relationship building, engaging and promoting your professional self!

As a breakdown the LinkedIn Social Selling Index provides you with:

1. A score out of 25 measuring how good you are at establishing your professional brand,
2. A rating out of 25 establishing how successful you are at finding the right people,
3. A mark out of 25 based on how well you engage with insights,
4. A ranking, also out of 25, showing the quality of your relationship building skills on LinkedIn.

The helpful tool also compares your overall score to the average overall score of people in your industry and in your network so put your own rating into context.

How to Access LinkedIn Social Selling Index

Simply login to LinkedIn and add “/sales/ssi” to the end of the “www.linkedin.com” URL in the web address bar and you’ll find your unique score, which is updated daily, giving you an indication of what you could do more of to get the most out of LinkedIn.

The Best Part About LinkedIn Social Selling Index

The tool is at its best when it is used for improving your use of LinkedIn by monitoring your progress – rather than getting too hung up on the score itself. For instance:

• If you have a low score for “Establishing your professional brand” you know you need to complete your LinkedIn profile with your ideal client in mind, tailoring your profile specifically to how your skills, product or service can help your target audience in some way. The LinkedIn Social Selling Index will also give you tips such as sharing meaningful and useful posts to your network to establish yourself as a “thought leader” or “go-to” person in your industry for knowledge and insights.
• If you rank fairly low in terms of “Finding the right people” the LinkedIn SSI will recommend things such as utilising efficient search and research tools to identify better potential clients in less time.
• In the case of having a poor “Engage with Insights” score, the LinkedIn Social Selling Index would encourage activities like finding and sharing posts that are likely to generate interest and debate to help you develop relationships with those in your network.
• Advice given to those with a low “Building Relationships” ranking might be to enhance the quality of your network on LinkedIn by finding and connecting with decision-makers and nurturing relationships with them to establish trust.

What’s more, if you click each of the four categories of rankings you are treated to a quick slideshow of tips on how to improve your use of LinkedIn in each category area.

What are you waiting for? Go see what your LinkedIn Social Selling Index score is and find out how you could give it a boost!