How to Improve your Social Selling Index

How to Improve your Social Selling Index

Many LinkedIn users are unaware that LinkedIn provide you with a tool for determining how well your promoting yourself on their platform. It’s called the The Social Selling Index (also known as SSI Score).

So what is Social Selling?

Before we look at how we can improve our Social Selling Index, we first need to understand exactly what social selling is.

Social selling is the process of using specific strategies to nurture relationships with a view to increasing sales. These days, social selling occurs primarily on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

So now we understand what social selling is, let’s look exactly you’re SSI score is all about. Your SSI is an aggregate score based on how well you engage with your target audience.

How you present yourself on social media will determine you SSI score. The way you engage with your target audience, the content you deliver then and how they respond to it will also affect your SSI Score.

The Importance of your Social Selling Index

LinkedIn recently reported that 80% of social selling professionals actually outsell traditional sales people. Clearly, it pays to have social selling skills and abilities. That said, those who possess a mix of both traditional and social selling techniques are always ahead by a country mile. 

How to Optimise your Social Selling Index?

So it’s time to get to work if you want to improve your SSI score on LinkedIn.

1. Stand out from the crowd

If you truly want to be taken seriously on LinkedIn, you need to have a strong brand. It needs to be consistent and professional. It starts with completing your LinkedIn profile. You will know when your profile is complete as you will be awarded with the All-Star badge.

But there is more to it than that. You also need to upload content in the form of high quality images, videos, presentations, videos, polls and share other peoples content too. It’s all about building authority, credibility and trust. By post long-form content on a regular basis you’re able to  demonstrate your knowledge.

Gradually over time, if your original content resonates and provides value, you will become known as a thought leader. Then you become the go to person when someone has a need with your area of specialisation. With any luck, you will also get some glowing recommendations and endorsements as social proof too.

2. Grow your connections

One of the ways in which Linkedin determines your SSI score is by the way you connect and interact with others on the platform. If you want to improve your score, you’ll need to use the search filters to find your ideal target audience and reach out to them. You do this by sending them a connection request.

It’s recommended that you personalise your connection request with a personalised connection note. As soon as someone connects back with you, make sure you follow up with them in order to nurture the relationship.

3. Be social

So the clue is in the name. You can’t be good at social selling if you’re not social. People with high SSI scores tend to be the ones who are pro-actively social.

You have to take time out to interact with your audiences content. You have to engage them, compliment them, share your opinions and do a little direct messaging too. Don’t forget to join relevant LinkedIn Groups too. These are great places to engage with like-minded people who share common interests.

4. Build trust and credibility

Finally, you need to build trust with your target audience. People buy from people they trust. When you consistently provide value and strong and useful advice, answer questions with authentic and meaningful answers, your build trust and credibility. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to buy from you.

Now it time to kickstart your SSI

I hope you found this quick overview useful. If you want to find out your own SSI score and the elements that make up your score, head over to your SSI Score.