Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn Social Selling Index

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

“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 that will help make life easier for those in your network. So, in the spirit of imparting advice and tips, I thought I’d draw your attention to the often underused and undervalued 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 based on how effectively you use LinkedIn for its intended purposes – relationship building, engaging and promoting your professional self!

What It Provides

The LinkedIn Social Selling Index gives you 4 separate scores out of 25 telling you how good you are at:

• Establishing your professional brand
• Finding the right people
• Engaging with insights
• Building relationships

The helpful tool also compares your overall LinkedIn SSI score to the average overall score of people in your industry.

How to Access LinkedIn Social Selling Index

Log into LinkedIn and find your unique SSI score here. LinkedIn updates it every day to give you an indication of how you can get the most out of it.

The Best Part About LinkedIn Social Selling Index

The tool is at its best when you use it to improve your LinkedIn engagement and monitor your progress, depending on which areas you are lacking in:

• Establish your professional brand: You need to complete your LinkedIn profile with your ideal client in mind, showing how your skills, product or service can help them 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.
• Find the right people: The LinkedIn SSI page will recommend things such as utilising efficient search and research tools to identify better potential clients in less time.
• Engage with insights: Your SSI 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.
• Build relationships: You may want 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!