Social Selling Index: The Powerful and Free LinkedIn Tool

If you’re like many people, you’re on LinkedIn because someone at some point told you that you had to be.  But are you taking advantage of the free tools that are available to help build your brand?

One of the biggest missed opportunities is something that you may not have ever heard of.

It’s called the Social Selling Index.  It’s powerful.  It’s analytical.  Oh, and did I mention it’s free?

Let’s break this down.  To simplify it, I want you all to think of it not from a sales perspective – but from an equity perspective: social equity.  The higher your social equity and influence, the greater the likelihood of you securing business. 

The Social Selling Index can be tough to measure....which is why LinkedIn rolled out this tool.  It gives users a score out of 100 based on 4 categories:   

1. Your Brand
2. Your Connections
3. Your Insights
4. Your Relationships

The beauty of this tool is that you get a score for your efforts.  It allows you to see where you have room for improvement. 

So why should you care?

First of all – you are your brand and your brand is you when it comes to business.  Whether you run a department or you run a company…or you just run to Starbucks to get a coffee for your boss…building your brand is one of the most important things you can do in the business world.

Last week, I gave a presentation to a group of college students.  We talked about the amount of noise out there when it comes to content online and even applications for the seemingly few and far between job options out there.  I encouraged them to focus on building their brand.  I told them they needed to start hunting down the right people and not just sending their resume…but to start marketing to them.

And that’s part of the concept of this whole “social selling” index.

So let’s dive a little into each of the four Social Selling Index rankings on LinkedIn and examine how you can boost your score.

1. Establishing Your Brand
   1. First of all, make sure that your profile is complete.  You want to have a professional picture, information about yourself and your job history and keywords about the skills you have or what you’re looking to brand yourself with.
   2. Get recommendations and endorsements from your clients and colleagues – but keep in mind that the recommendations will hold exponentially more weight than endorsements.
   3. Be a content curator.  Share engaging posts regularly and start publishing on Pulse.  Be a thought leader but do it through a combination of content aggregation and content curation. 
2. Connecting With The Right People
   1. Start thinking about quality over quantity.  Connect with people who are relevant in your industry or expertise.  This whole “LION” (LinkedIn Open Networker) is all well and good, but start focusing on people with whom you align from a business perspective.
   2. Use the Advanced Search and Trigger Events to really streamline the entire process and find connections with a high level of relevancy.
3. Interacting With Insights
   1. Part of establishing yourself as a thought leader isn’t just curating content…it’s also distributing that content.  Joining relevant groups and engaging in discussions to contribute to the social community is a powerful way of establishing expertise and branding.
   2. Stop focusing on selling and start focusing on teaching.  Being an educator in your respective field will help establish you as a Subject Matter Expert.
4. Relationship Building
   1. Make sure you find out who is viewing your profile and don’t just connect with them…engage with them.
   2. Comment on posts, message people and contribute to groups.  Don’t just be a bystander – be a member of the community.
   3. Consider starting a group or even “adopting” a group that’s fallen by the wayside.  It will give you an exponentially larger reach and spread your subject matter expertise faster than ever before.

Speaking of groups…we’ve got a secret group of marketers and business leaders.  It’s not on LinkedIn – it’s on Facebook.  If you’re interested in being a part of this private community…it’s totally free.  Just make sure you’re having conversations on there and NOT selling something.  Interested?  Follow me on Facebook here and shoot me a message - I'll make sure to add you!