How to boost sales on LinkedIn: Master your social selling index.
As well as the ability to sell your product and service, you also need a strong, credible online presence that encourages brand trust and engagement. LinkedIn offers a social selling index (SSI) that ranks your ability to sell effectively and connect with your audience.
You need to understand SSI, so you can improve your performance and generate more valuable leads. You must continually learn for your SSI score and refine your paid social strategy based on your learnings.
To find out all you need to know about social selling and how to become a master of your LinkedIn social selling index read on.
So…what is social selling and why should you care?
Social selling is the process of using social platforms to generate valuable leads for B2B and B2C. A valuable lead is ultimately a lead that leads to a conversion (or sale!). You want to target and sell to those leads who are most likely to find interest in your business.
Social media activity is a component of social selling as it relates to boosting your online presence, brand credibility and brand awareness/reach, which are all essential factors when it comes to generating sales.
Brands care more about social selling than ever. This is because the social commerce market size is growing and growing at speed; by 2026 the market will reach almost $3 trillion. This shows there are powerful opportunities for brands to benefit from social selling. Here are some of the key benefits:
- You don’t have to rely on cold calling: LinkedIn offers advertisers the opportunity to connect and network with potential leads. You can build a relationship on the platform and nurture a lead consistently.
- You can showcase your brand credibility: we all know how important brand trust and credibility are when generating leads. Brands with a strong online presence, relevant content and an engaged community are deemed ‘trustworthy’ by potential leads. Social media can help you demonstrate and enhance your brand credibility.
- Social selling allows you to drive traffic to your website: By including links and calls to action in your LinkedIn content, you can increase referral traffic to your site.
- Identify, nurture and generate valuable leads: as mentioned previously, by increasing brand credibility and effectively communicating with leads, you can ensure you are investing time in valuable leads.
Overall, social selling is something brands need to consider to have an effective paid social strategy. Social selling became a well-known term in the marketing world because of LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index, a marketing tool that assesses how good a brand/person is at ‘selling’ and generating valuable leads. Let’s explore this further.
What is LinkedIn’s social selling index?
LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index gives a score to a LinkedIn profile. This score is based on four factors: establishing a professional brand. the identification of prospects, engagement in meaningful conversations and building relationships.
The platform states that profiles should aim for an SSI score of 75 or above, as this social selling index means you will be considered a thought leader.
5 ways to boost your LinkedIn social selling index
1. Optimise your LinkedIn profile
You want to present your brand in the most professional way. This means you need to think about your profile from a user perspective: would your audience be interested and engaged with your profile/content? Are your profile sections fully complete? Do you address the customer’s main pain points? Is the information on your profile relevant to your audience? By answering these questions and making the most out of the features avaialble you will be able to enhance your profile.
2. Utilise LinkedIn tools and features
LinkedIn offers multiple tools that can help you generate valuable leads:
- Use Sales Navigator to help find potential leads and nurture those relationships at scale.
- Lead Builder allows you to filter users based on a range of factors, so you can find the most relevant leads. You can then organise and save your potential leads in one account.
- Services like LinkedIn for small businesses are useful for sales guidance and how to build client relationships. They offer free resources like checklists and guides.
3. Don’t (always) use AI
Although LinkedIn prohibits AI tools like ChatGPT, the platform works with its partners in the industry to support the automation of some tasks. You need to consider whether the automation will save you enough time to balance out the loss of personal touch it brings.
It might be useful for post-scheduling and analytical tasks but automation might harm content creation and copywriting as it reduces personality and tailored messaging.
4. Engage with your audience consistently
The SSI is determined by your engagement. This not only means the amount of engagement you receive on posts but also how well you engage with other people’s content. This tells the SSI how well you monitor industry trends and are active in meaningful conversations.
Engaging with others also helps you build your network and relationships with prospective clients.
5. Be selective in who you contact
Although it may feel like a numbers game when it comes to generating leads (and in some ways it is), you also need to go after leads that you feel you will be able to build a rapport with and that are relevant to your ideal customer profile (ICP).
- Top tip: You can use LinkedIn groups to join in industry conversations as well as gain valuable insights.
Ready to improve your social selling index?
Here at Embryo, our team of paid social experts are ready to support you with all your paid social needs. Get in touch today and generate more valuable leads than ever before!
