The LinkedIn Social Selling Index score measures how effective you could be at generating sales conversations, based on your profile and professional brand. It's is a free tool that also shows you where to improve on LinkedIn. Not many people know about this score — but it just might change the game.
What Is the LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) Score?
The LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) score is a metric used by LinkedIn to evaluate profiles and accounts. Your SSI score will indicate how effective you are at using LinkedIn — including specifics such as:
- Establishing your professional brand
- Finding the right people
- Engaging with insights
- Building relationships
According to LinkedIn, Social Selling is all about leveraging real-time insights. Social selling leaders create 45% more opportunities than their peers with a lower SSI score. Plus, you’re 51% more likely to reach quota — and 78% of social sellers outsell their peers who don’t use social media.
It’s helpful to know your LinkedIn SSI score because your personalized results will indicate where you could improve when using LinkedIn.
What Is My LinkedIn SSI Score?
Find your LinkedIn SSI score by clicking here and choosing “Get your score.” If you’re logged into your LinkedIn account, your score will come up immediately.
First, you’ll see your industry SSI rank; network SSI rank; and current Social Selling Index.
When you scroll down, you’ll also be able to view how you compare to people in your industry and people in your network.
Here’s a breakdown of each category so you can understand exactly what you’re looking at. Keep in mind that your LinkedIn SSI score refreshes every day.
Industry SSI rank
Your industry SSI rank indicates how you rank against others in your industry. Ideally, you’ll be in the top 20%. If you’re in the top 1-5%, even better!
Network SSI rank
Your network SSI rank compares you with everyone in your LinkedIn network—all first-degree connections.
Current Social Selling Index
This is the primary area of your score. Here, you can view how successful you are in the components LinkedIn uses to find your SSI. The four components shown are added up to show your score on a scale of 1-100.
People in your industry
LinkedIn takes your SSI score and compares it to the average score from people in your industry. You can also see how your score has changed week over week.
People in your network
Similarly, LinkedIn also compares your score to the scores of everyone in your network.
Why is my LinkedIn SSI score important?
Your LinkedIn SSI score is important because it helps you understand how well you’re marketing yourself on LinkedIn. Your score will give you personalized feedback to show the areas where you could improve.
How To Use Your LinkedIn SSI Score
To determine a user’s Social Selling Index, LinkedIn measures four elements of social selling, which are added together to create your score. You can improve your score (and, of course, improve your LinkedIn marketing) by working on each of these key areas.
Establish your professional brand
LinkedIn encourages users to complete your profile with your ideal customer in mind. Your headline and summary should both be tailored to your target audience. Be direct, clear, and concise about who you help and what you help with. Remember to ask for recommendations from people you’ve worked with.
Publishing posts with educational, humorous or otherwise valuable information is another way to up your LinkedIn game. What does your audience want to hear? How can your unique perspective help? Share authentic, helpful content on a regular basis to your LinkedIn.
Find the right people
LinkedIn rewards users who work to connect with others. Whether you’re looking for prospects who may want to buy from you; researching hiring managers who might have job openings; or simply looking to make peer connections in your industry, it’s easy to search for people and grow your LinkedIn network. Doing so will improve your SSI score, too.
Engage with insights
As your network grows, make sure you’re continuing to keep up your engagement on the platform, too. This might look like:
- Creating new posts (and responding to any comments you get)
- Engaging with other posts by liking, commenting, and/or sharing
- Watching live streams or videos
This is a quick and easy way to boost your SSI score.
Build relationships
Build a strong network by connecting with decision makers—and not only connecting, but nurturing relationships long-term. LinkedIn boosts your score to reward you for having conversations with credible professionals.
Improve Your Presence on LinkedIn
Looking for additional information on how to improve your LinkedIn profile? Use our LinkedIn Profile Review! This free tool is a Chrome browser extension that will analyze your current LinkedIn profile and give personalized suggestions on how to improve. It’s the best way to show up higher in search results and to truly stand out to recruiters.
