Social Selling – how to increase your influence
Sometimes LinkedIn can be a bit unforgiving. You may have posted a few times and seen very little engagement, so you gave up. Or you find that you’re swamped with connection requests from people trying to sell you something and it turns you off social selling altogether. Or you feel like you really don’t have very much to say, so you don’t bother posting at all.
Since social distance restrictions have limited my access to events, I have turned to LinkedIn to help me to network virtually. I’ve worked hard on my personal brand, and I have developed a process for a predictable, repeatable sales funnel. I had never thought of LinkedIn as a social selling tool before – until now I’ve loved LinkedIn as a way of staying connected to people I meet and to tune in to conversations that matter. Here’s everything that I’ve learnt to help you to use LinkedIn to attract your ideal clients to you in a way that makes them want to do business with you.
It seems silly to admit it, but this little metric has really helped. My Social Selling Index! I watch my SSI score pretty much every week, and love to see it nudging upwards. If I see it dip, it motivates me to think of content that I can post that my network will be interested in.
So how does it work? If you have a LinkedIn profile, you have a Social Selling Index score. Based on your LinkedIn activity, you’re awarded a score in four different areas. Just Google it and find out. Here’s a clip from a webinar that I ran recently that explains what you need to do to grow your Social Selling Index score.
- Be consistently active – 10 mins/day is better than 1 hr/week
- Ensure your profile is complete – photos, headline, about me, rich media, recommendations
- Engage with your network – comment on aand react to posts, reply to messages
- Manage connections – accept/reject, invite and always use personalised messaging
- Post regularly – 2/3 times a week
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