Your Social Selling Index (SSI) and How to Improve It

In this guide, I'm going to explain to you what the Social Selling Index score is why it's important and how to improve it.

When you get this score above 75, it makes a difference to the reach of your posts. It's also good indicator of how you're doing on LinkedIn with regard to sales activities.

BUT, the real indicator of how you're doing is how many leads you're generating and sales you're closing so don't fall into the trap of thinking all is well just because you have a high SSI.

Find out your LinkedIn SSI score free with the Social Selling Index calculator now and then come back so I can explain it to you and help you improve it: https://www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi

What is the SSI?

According to LinkedIn, “the Social Selling Index, or SSI, is a measure of a salesperson’s social selling skills and execution.”

So, the question is: should you even be concerned about it? 

The answer is: if you’re a coach, consultant or small business owner providing services; then YES you should!

Without sales, you have no business and that’s your responsibility as a business owner!

What is a good SSI Score for Me?

Having said all that, however; the SSI is very much geared towards ‘classic’ salespeople that work for organisations so don’t take everything to the letter…

My advice is to make sure that you don’t score below 15 in any of the 4 components and that your overall score is above 75.

This shows that you’re performing well on LinkedIn and it also means your content is likely to get more reach!

This graphic shows people who have their industry set to Professional Training & Coaching in their LinkedIn account have an average score of just 26 out of 100! 

It's no wonder then that more than 50% of coaches make less than $1,000 per month… and that’s from real data that we’ve collected from over 5,000 coaches!

SSI Explained

The SSI is shown as a number that ranges from 0 to 100 and is split up into 4 sections:

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

Each section is weighted with 25 points and LinkedIn also tells you how you rank compared to others in your industry and your personal network.

Here’s mine… it used to be higher! 😅 I've been slacking with my content recently so this doesn’t really surprise me.

Now let’s take a look at each of the 4 components and I’ll give you some tips on how to improve in each one…

Establish Your Professional Brand

• Show exactly who you are in your profile with a clear profile picture of you looking directly at the camera with a smile and plain background
• Get recommendations on your profile - ask your clients for them!
• Make sure you have the correct skills set up and pin the top 3 to the top of the skills section
• Use multimedia links in your profile
• Post regularly in the newsfeed and have at least 3 published articles.
• Include your industry and location in your profile and fill in the about, experience, skills and education sections

Find the Right People

• Use the search tool with advanced filters on LinkedIn to find your prospects.
• Always start with 2nd-degree connections when reaching out as they are way more likely to accept the invitation.
• Keep an eye on who views your profile and send a connection invitation with a friendly message to those who look like potential clients.
• Generate more inbound views to your profile by configuring it to show up in searches and switching on Creator Mode.
• Be active every day on LinkedIn.
• Use Sales Navigator (but only if you know how!)
• Make sure your acceptance rate stays above 40%

Engage with Insights

• Use LinkedIn groups and engage in discussions in places your target audience is likely to be. Show that you are an authority in your subject matter.
• Interact with your potential clients’ content and make intelligent contributions. Inbound AND outbound engagement count!
• Post your own content and ensure it’s valuable to your audience and something they will genuinely find useful.
• Publish articles and/or newsletters.
• Share others’ content and engage with others who comment, like or share your posts.

Build Relationships

• Ensure you’re connecting with the right people on LinkedIn and when you do, provide value to them.
• Send relevant content to them through messages and tag people in posts but only when you think they can benefit from the content.
• Share your network’s content whenever relevant and support your network on LinkedIn.
• Start conversations with people who like and comment on your posts.
• Keep your LinkedIn message inbox up to date.

What If My SSI Score Is Low?

Don’t panic! If your Social Selling Index is low, just start using LinkedIn as I’ve described here and over time it will improve. Of course, there’s a lot more to it but this is a great starting point.

Most importantly, be consistent with everything you do on LinkedIn, including posting, messaging, interacting on others’ posts, making new connections etc.

If you really want to increase your Social Selling Index quickly then consider signing up for Sales Navigator. I only ever recommend this to my clients once they're making sales from LinkedIn before splashing out $99/month!

Run a LinkedIn SSI score check regularly. If you’re using LinkedIn to grow your business then you really ought to be tracking your SSI each week (and striving to improve it if it’s low). 

Here's a copy of my LinkedIn Growth Tracker spreadsheet that you can use to do this with an instructional video to show you how to use it.