What's Your LinkedIn SSI Score Telling You?
Be honest. When's the last time you checked your LinkedIn SSI score? If it's been more than a month, you're due for a check-up.
LinkedIn gives you a score, whether you like it or not, whether you have a paid or free account. EVERYONE. GETS. SCORED.
Does your SSI score matter or not? Is it just another vanity metric?
Go HERE to find out your score.
You'll want to have YOUR score pulled up and ready to go for this installment of Mondays with Mindi where we're going to discuss what your SSI score is, why it matters, how to improve it -- and my favorite part, how it can lead to building better (more profitable) business relationships!
If you’ve been on LinkedIn for any length of time, you may have heard some chatter about your Social Selling Index score. I’ll refer to it as SSI moving forward.
Problem is, nobody really knows what it is, how to use it, what it stands for, and how to know if they’re improving on LinkedIn.
What good is a score if you have NO idea how to improve it? You have the choice to ignore it, but then you’re missing out on a valuable snapshot of your LinkedIn activity.
For the naysayers of SSI scores, you may have heard that...
SSI scores are useless, just a vanity metric
I don’t know what to do with my score
I barely spend any time on LinkedIn, so what does it even matter?
There’s got to be a better way to track my LinkedIn activity and effect
It’s purely inaccurate, not a reflection of my efforts at all - sometimes the inverse!
Let’s get to the bottom of the SSI score today - if you’ve got this real-time snapshot coming directly from LinkedIn - it’s something to at least be aware of and pay attention to if it makes sense for your objectives.
My SSI “aha” Moment
I was skeptical. I’ve always been skeptical when LinkedIn releases a new feature or tells you something about your LinkedIn profile.
I track my own metrics. I have my own spreadsheets. I watch very particular (super secret!) metrics to tell when my programs are working.
I get it. Not everyone is as nerdy as I am when it comes to tracking their LinkedIn ROI.
How nerdy are you? Do you pore over spreadsheets and analytics dashboards?
Most people are probably NOT that nerdy, unless it’s directly related to their day job.
So, I had an “aha” moment when I was delivering a webinar presentation to a group of corporate executives about making the most of their LinkedIn profiles.
Someone asked about the SSI score. Was that a metric to pay attention to?
I paused. Hmmmm.
Are these execs EVER going to dig into one of my nerdy spreadsheets or have a monthly debrief with me about how many one-to-one conversations they’ve had with their ideal prospects based on our outreach and marketing efforts.
Uh, no.
What DO they have time to do? They have time to check their SSI score for 60 seconds every so often just to see how they’re doing.
That’s when it hit for me. The SSI score is valuable. It’s not just a vanity metric.
If you want to go deeper, you can. But if all you need is “a general idea” of how you’re doing on LinkedIn, you’ll get a nice hit of dopamine by checking your score.
If you’re not going deep with your LinkedIn sales and marketing program -- ahem, I can help you if you want to get nerdy -- the SSI score is something you should definitely check every month or so. If you notice that it’s not going up or maintaining over time, it’s time to go deeper.
Check Your SSI Score Monthly
Okay, it’s time to bring up your score. If you’re watching the replay, go here to pull up your LinkedIn SSI score.
Now, put a reminder in your task manager to recur every month.
What does each section of your SSI score mean?
Industry SSI Rank - this is exactly what it sounds like. How do you rank against people in your industry? LinkedIn looks at the industry you’ve marked on your LinkedIn profile and uses its fancy algorithm to determine where you stand in the industry.
If you’re in the top 1-5% for your industry, you’re doing pretty well.
To improve this score, you’ll need to focus on the weakest components of your score.
Network SSI Rank - this is the ranking you have against all of the people in your LinkedIn network, those 1st degree connections, people you’ve either accepted a connection request from or invited to join your network. If you have a network filled with LinkedIn power users, your score may not be as high as your industry average.
If you’re in the top 1-3% for your network, you’re doing pretty well.
To improve this score, you can either up your game on LinkedIn OR start disconnecting with the LinkedIn power users and start connecting with new LinkedIn users (not what I’d typically recommend!)
What are the four components of your score?
Establish your personal brand - LinkedIn is encouraging you to create an engaging LinkedIn profile, which is the cornerstone of your LinkedIn presence. You’ll also need to regularly share posts to LinkedIn. I recommend starting with one post per week if you’ve never shared a LinkedIn post before.
Find the right people - LinkedIn is a social networking platform, and they want you to regularly connect with people for business purposes. When you regularly search for people, invite them to connect, and also accept other good connections into your network -- this makes LinkedIn’s algorithm happy. Even if you’re not using LinkedIn specifically for sales, it’s a good best practice to continue growing your network.
Engage with insights - When you view live streams, watch videos, engage with other people’s posts, leave comments, and @ mention people in the LinkedIn news feed — LinkedIn notices. The more you engage, the more highly you’ll score on this component. I’d recommend looking to comment on one or two posts per weekday to feed the algorithm.
Build relationships - This one seems to be a blend of the prior two components at first glance, but it’s really an amalgamation of how you’re building relationships on LinkedIn. If you’re messaging people who are credible in the industry, getting into two-way dialogue with other experts and using the platform to nurture your business relationship, LinkedIn will score you highly for this.
Put all of these components together, and you get your score on a scale of 1-100.
I haven’t seen many people stay above 90 on this score indefinitely, but I do tend to see my best performers hover in the 80s.
Now for the last two metrics here.
If you like to play comparisons, you can see what scores people in your industry and people in your network tend to have. This can be interesting from multiple angles, especially if you want to gamify it a bit.
So there you have it, all of the elements to your Social Selling Index, what each of them means to you, and how you can make snap judgments when you’re looking for a quick gauge that doesn’t require in-depth analysis.
SSI scores can be a valuable tool for those who want to use LinkedIn well but are not looking to embark on a serious sales and marketing initiative where the numbers must directly tie to ROI.
How do YOU measure up on LinkedIn?
If you want to go deeper with your marketing analytics, I do recommend an affordable tool called SHIELD (not an affiliate link) that will help you get the LinkedIn metrics for your LinkedIn profile beyond the Social Selling Index. I’m not getting a kickback for shouting them out, but it’s a tool I use for my clients who want to keep their finger on the marketing pulse of what’s working (and not) on LinkedIn from their LinkedIn posts.
For those of you who REALLY want my own nerdy spreadsheet with my short tutorial video on how to use it to help you keep track of your sales and marketing metrics, get my spreadsheet here that will get you direct download access. Don’t you love freebies? :)
