What is the LinkedIn SSI and Why Does it Matter to You?
By: Social Advisors
Tags: Prospecting, LinkedIn

The LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) score is a metric that LinkedIn put in place to measure the activity of their users. Since its inception in 2014, SSI has gone through a number of updates, always working toward measuring each user’s effectiveness as a social seller. As the score increases, LinkedIn believes it can accurately predict who is more or less effective at prospecting and selling on their social platform.

How Does LinkedIn Measure the SSI Score?

The SSI score is a measure of an individual or company’s performance in 4 disciplines or pillars that relate directly to prospecting and social selling. The level of positive activity in each of these four categories indicates to LinkedIn how likely one is to be an effective salesperson. The pillars by which LinkedIn bases the SSI are:

1. Your ability to establish your professional brand

2. Your ability to connect with the right people

3. The frequency of your engagement with insights

4. Your ability to build strong relationships

Each category is scored 0–25 based on activity and effectiveness. Then, the scores are added together for a possible SSI ranking of between 0–100.

LinkedIn says that “as a salesperson’s social selling index rises, so does their sales success.” According to LinkedIn, “SSI leaders generate 45% more opportunities per quarter and are 51% more likely to exceed their quota”.

Establish a Professional Brand

To determine a score related to your ability to establish a professional brand, LinkedIn reviews the completeness of your personal or company profile page. Do you have a cover photo and a profile photo? How many followers do you have? Have you published on LinkedIn and how many views have those articles received?

Connect with the Right People

LinkedIn wants you to connect with highly active people in your industry. They want you to prospect using their Sales Navigator platform and specifically their LeadBuilder tool. The score for your ability to find and connect with the right people looks at the strength of your network, the number of professionals that accept your connection request and your engagement with LinkedIn’s LeadBuilder tool.

Engagement with Insights & Alerts

In Sales Navigator, LinkedIn provides insights into your saved leads, alerting you to activity about your best and most desirable prospects. The amount that you engage with the leads you’ve saved will impact the related SSI score. Save the right leads, connect with the right professionals and interact often to increase your score.

Build a Strong Relationship

LinkedIn bases your SSI score on your ability to build the right relationships. After all, we’re not simply using LinkedIn to connect with the right people and post content. The objective is to engage and create lasting relationships….offline. The upfront activity has little impact on your relationships with prospects or your ability to sell if you can’t take the conversation offline and create new business.

Boost Your SSI Score

LinkedIn draws a direct correlation from your activity on their social platform to your performance as a salesperson. My experience is in direct correlation to their findings. The majority of our business development is directly or indirectly related to conversations and relationships started and nurtured on LinkedIn. However, sales skill is still a must, as these relationships do not lead to greater production unless you can build offline rapport and find a need for your services.

Put energy into boosting your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) score. Complete your professional brand, publish content, use Sales Navigator to find and connect with the right professional audience, engage with that audience and build relationships. LinkedIn demonstrates that the activity will help you on your way to effective social selling.

For more information or assistance in getting started, contact Social Advisors.