LinkedIn has been offering the Social Selling Index (SSI) since 2013. The SSI is an indicator of the sales professionals’ activity who use LinkedIn to get leads or prospects. Until not long ago, this tool could only be used by Business and Sales Solutions Accounts, but now it has become available for all LinkedIn users.

What can we use the SSI for? Basically, it helps us to measure our presence in LinkedIn. To get, you can click here.

How does it work? It uses four basic social selling ideas to measure activity. Social selling is a practice that consists on establishing strong and close relationships with potential clients. Its strengths lies on empathy and on truly understanding the client’s needs.

What are the four ideas of social selling? Social selling is based on four pillars: establishing a personal brand, finding the right people, interact obtaining information and build relationships. Each of these pillars may have a value that goes from 0 to 25 –the entire indicator scores from 0 to 100-. LinkedIn uses information of your account’s activity and classifies it within those four pillars, up-dating data on a daily basis. In addition, it provides comparisons with other professionals of your industry and with your contacts.

Having detailed information using SSI enables you to know your current situation and to identify the areas you need to work on. If you wish to know how to make the most of your LinkedIn profile, we recommend your read this article, where you can learn how to develop the four pillars of social selling.