When our lives started turning upside down last month, I decided that we would all benefit from some 5 Day Challenges. We would be able to gain a skill, find some focus and get to know some other tourism pros. The Linkedin Challenge was a few weeks back and I am still hearing from those of you who joined me and my friend Louise, who is a Linkedin expert based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We had a lot of fun!
Social Selling Index- a new Linkedin Feature
Louise showed us all early in the challenge how to measure our Social Selling Index, a set of 4 measurements that helps you see how you rank next to others and where you can focus your improvements. We all shared our SSI number, and by the end of the challenge, we had all improved. Mine went from 62-68 so I was excited!
We will run the challenge again, but in the meantime, Louise was generous enough to let me run her recent blog post. You can learn more about Louise at SocialBeeNI and subscribe to her blog and podcast there as well.
Your Social Selling Index – what is this, and how is it measured?
Your Social Selling Index (SSI) measures how effective you are at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships. It is updated daily.
The SSI is a measurement taken by LinkedIn.
You can access it at www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi and log in to your own account.
The SSI is a number marked out of 100 and is broken down into four sections.
Establishing your personal professional brand.
81% of buyers will buy from a strong professional brand and over 90% of LinkedIn members will engage with sales professionals who have established a strong brand.
How do you establish your brand?
- Start creating posts and articles that show your thought leadership. Consider uploading slideshares to your profile.
- Check out the new Featured media section in your profile. This is perfect for linking to articles, external websites, speaker reels and more.
I recently worked with a client who has written articles and spoken at events around the world. She was able to add these to her Featured section and really highlight her expertise.
Write longer posts that engage with your industry and network. Make them relevant to your career or business!
Getting endorsements from your network helps with this section too – when you endorse others in your network, you might find they reciprocate with you.
Find the right people.
This can be tricky if you don’t pay for LinkedIn premium.
Use the search box at the top to search for people who are relevant to you. Connect with 2nd level connections to your own network.
When you click on the search box, a white pop up box will appear and allows you to refine your search by the following”
- People
- Jobs
- Content
- Companies
- Schools
- Groups
Connect with people you have something in common with. Maybe you are in the same Groups. Maybe you went to the same university. Maybe you work in the same industry!
Take advantage of who has viewed your profile. Reach out to them. This is much handier when you have LinkedIn premium. Linkedin premium will tell you who has looked at your profile over the last 90 days.
If someone has been looking at your profile, and you think they may be interested in your business, reach out and connect with them.
You can do the same across so many different industries. But if you are not connecting, and not posting your own content, you are under utilising the whole platform.
Engage with Insights.
To increase this number they recommend you share valuable content with your network and tag those you think would be interested in the content.
Comment on your network’s posts. Don’t just click the like button – write something that continues the conversation – and shows your own knowledge or interest in the subject.
Increase your own posting frequency.
I recommend you post daily on LinkedIn if you can. If this is your only social media platform for winning business, take it seriously!
Be strategic with what you share – simply sharing anecdotes or funny videos will not bring you business. We are looking for conversation-starting posts.
Also if there is someone in your network who has a crossover of client type with you – by commenting on their posts, you are raising your own profile in front of their audience. This will lead to more people checking out your profile and connecting.
Build relationships
Connect and establish trust with decision makers.
According to LinkedIn, there are over 5 people involved in making decisions about business so focus on building relationships with more senior-level executives (if you are working in the B2B sector)
Nurture those relationships – reach out either in the newsfeed, tagging your contacts when relevant, or by messaging them to keep in touch.
LinkedIn uses SSI to encourage you to try their premium sales account – the Sales Navigator. You don’t need to use Sales navigator though to build a good network around you. In this blog/podcast I talk about how you can build relationships with your connections on LinkedIn – https://socialbeeni.com/social-bee-podcast-ep-101-how-to-start-conversation-on-linkedin/
I would love to hear what your SSI is. When we ran my LinkedIn 5 Day Challenge recently, every member measured their SSI at the start of the week, and again at the end. While most people raised they SSI by one or two points, a few raised theirs by almost 10 points.
If you would like to know more about increasing your reach and growing your business on LinkedIn, why not book a discovery call with Louise today. Click here to schedule!
Thanks to my friend Louise for helping us out. Now it’s my turn:
How can I help you this month?
Have you checked out Tourism Pro Academy? There are free resources, online courses and more. Take some time to learn something new during our National “Pause”. I am adding new courses this month so check it out! Click here to access the site for free.
DMO’s – Are you looking for ways to provide some value to your members during this time? Would you like to offer a live webinar “Continue your Career from Your Couch” that I will host? Join organizations such as SYTA, Circle Michigan, Pennsylvania Bus Association, and Visit Baton Rouge who have hired me this year to educate and inform their members. Click here for additional information on the Online Tourism Training Program.
New! Profile Sheet 911. We know that your profile sheet is your sales ambassador in the Group Tour market. Is yours doing it all it should? Is it effective in answering tour operator questions and making your business sound appealing? Get ready now for when group tours start picking back up. Get ready now for the upcoming trade show season! Sign up for the new Profile sheet 911 program. For only $69 you will get a customized review that is also recorded. Click here for more details. This will be fun!
My friend Jonathan Elkboubi has teamed up with some other Tourism Pros and created HTTA and asked me to share:
If you have recently joined the ranks of the unemployed and furloughed of the US Hospitality, Travel, Tourism and Activities Industries, we invite you to register now at www.HTTA.us. HTTA is a benevolent, confidential and secured database meant to allow you to remain connected to the Trade Associations and DMOs you were involved with, which are unaware of your current work status. We will be adding new functionalities to benefit you once recovery starts, such as industry job boards, a continuing education resource center, and a recovery information repository.
Check out Jonathan’s 2016 Tourism Pro Talk Interview here
Can I ask a favor? Could you share this post with at least 2 of your colleagues who would benefit from reading it? And then they can sign up here to receive my posts directly to their inbox. Thank you!