Your LinkedIn Social Selling Index: The Third Element, Engage with Insights

Welcome to my fourth installment in my series about your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI)!

My last article discussed the second element in your SSI, Find the Right People.

This article is about the third element, Engage with Insights.

Let’s jump into this one!

Engage with Insights has four components as taken from the LinkedIn page:

1. Share relevant resources to strengthen personal connections
2. Stay in the know with timely content
3. Engage in discussion where your connections are
4. Use relevant information when reaching out

Now, lets delve into each of these components.

LinkedIn summarizes share relevant resources to strengthen personal connections as:

Post relevant content that can help you become a rusted source of insights and engage with insights from others.

Their expert tip is to identify information for prospects that shows you care about their success and tag them when you share.

You can execute this by:

1. Share from your LinkedIn timeline or sources like Facebook or Feedly
2. Stick to your knitting! (In other words, use your keywords.)
3. Have a regular posting schedule
4. Don’t share what everyone else is sharing! Dig a little for that unique piece of content!

LinkedIn summarizes stay in the know with timely content as:

Leverage industry data and news on LinkedIn to stay up to date.

Their expert tip is to find timely articles to share on LinkedIn Pulse and get real-time insights on your saved leads and accounts with Sales Navigator. (Yeah, I know Pulse is long gone and what about free accounts, I’ll address this shortly.)

You can execute this by:

1. OK, Pulse is no more but you can still use LinkedIn as a source or other social media channels as well
2. Sales Navigator isn’t necessary. Maintain your own list of key connections on your tool of choice
3. “Timely” is the operative word here! Focus on today and tomorrow, not last year
4. What are today’s issues facing your connections? What are their unanswered questions? Why not ask them?

LinkedIn summarizes engage in discussion where your connections are as:

Leave thoughtful, constructive comments on content your prospects share or join LinkedIn Groups.

Their expert tip is participating in common groups can reinforce shared interests and goals.

You can execute this by:

1. Try to say more than “Great article!”
2. Tell your connections why this article is worth their reading
3. Recommend what should their takeaways be from this article
4. Participate in Groups!

LinkedIn summarizes use relevant information when reaching out as:

Always customize messages using relevant information you have learned about the person on LinkedIn.

Their expert tip is to use response rates as a way to gauge success of InMail or connection requests.

You can execute this by:

1. Track your activity
   1. Connection requests made of you
   2. Your connection requests acceptances
   3. Likes
   4. Shares
   5. Comments
2. This can all be done with a free account and your tool of choice
3. Track these metrics regularly

The third element of the LinkedIn SSI is all about how you engage with your connections.

Are you someone who is worthwhile to listen to?

As in real time, face-to-face meetings, the person who adds value and offers a unique perspective gets attention.

Think about what your connections expect and don’t be shy about starting a conversation to ask them what their expectations are!

My next and last article in this series will be about the fourth element of the LinkedIn SSI: Build Relationships.

Also, don’t forget, LinkedIn makes a big deal about having a Premium Account and using Sales Navigator to improve your SSI.

You can do all these things with a free account with discipline and creativity.

That’s it for now!

Please check-out my 8 step approach for developing a social media program to get some more ideas on how to use social media.

Also, never forget to reach out to either ask questions or to ask for help from someone like myself!

In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!

I look forward to any and all comments that you may have. I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.

And, remember!

I do this for a living and if I can be of any assistance to either you or your organization, please feel free to call on me. Our initial discussion will be of no charge to you.