The New Formula for Social Selling Infographic

Metrics play a critical role in establishing benchmarks, future goals, and identifying top performers.  Just as a quarterback cares about win percentages and passer rating, sales professionals need to pay attention to their Social Selling Index, or SSI, score.

LinkedIn created the SSI to quantify the degree to which an individual sales professional or a sales team is effectively utilizing LinkedIn in their sales process. The SSI measures progress on four metrics including the ability to:

1. Create a Professional Brand

2. Find the Right People

3. Engage with Insights

4. Build Strong Relationships

Each metric is scored on a scale of 0-25, for a maximum score of 100.

Since we introduced SSI, we have seen a positive correlation between high SSI and individual sales performance. LinkedIn’s own sales reps with an SSI above 90 were three times more likely to go to Club than any other sales rep.

What’s more, SSI leaders have 45% more opportunities per quarter, and are 51% more likely to hit their quotas than those with a low SSI.

This year, LinkedIn has updated the SSI formula to be even more predictive. SSI is intended to measure how well you use LinkedIn for social selling; so we keep it up to date with changes on our site. Additional metrics have been added to evaluate the quality of social interactions, in addition to the quantity.  SSI now includes three key changes:

• New Sales Navigator activities such as number of leads and accounts saved
• More metrics that measure quality (vs. quantity) such as InMail response rate and acceptance rate for connection requests
• Publishing platform activities such as the number of LinkedIn posts your write and the engagement (i.e. comments, likes, shares) you receive from your posts

Check out the New Formula for Social Selling Infographic to learn more about the new formula, what it measures, and how you can continue to improve your SSI.