LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI): How to Check and Grow It in 2025

The sales game has changed. Poorly personalized cold emails get ignored. Irrelevant cold calls go straight to voicemail. 

Social selling is a better way to hit your sales quota in 2025. But how do you use LinkedIn to meet, warm, and convert leads? 

Spoiler alert: LinkedIn lays out exactly how to improve social sales success with a hidden gem of a metric called the LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI). 

LinkedIn SSI helps you track your progress toward common goals like building your audience, finding your voice, creating more meaningful connections, and satisfying the algorithm. 

We sat down with Expandi Product Manager Azza Kamoun to better understand the LinkedIn Social Selling Index and learn firsthand how to improve your scores across the four SSI pillars. 

With the help of this guide to LinkedIn SSI, you’ll answer these questions: 

• What is the Linked Social Selling Index?
• How do you check and understand your LinkedIn SSI? 
• How do you boost your SSI score across each pillar?

What is the LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI)?

LinkedIn SSI is a metric that quantifies your likelihood of social selling success across four pillars with a score between 0 and 100. 

A higher SSI correlates with better deal conversion rates and pipeline growth, as it signals that you’re effectively using LinkedIn to deliver more personal and authentic sales outreach. 

“LinkedIn SSI is a full circle moment, measuring success across the sales process,” Kamoun explains. “If you have a good professional brand, know who to connect with, post content that’s relevant to your ICP, and engage with their relevant content, your ICP is going to find you, and you’re going to find them. It’s both an inbound and outbound strategy.”

The 4 social selling pillars that make up your SSI score are:

1. Establish your professional brand — Is your LinkedIn profile complete, and do you actively participate on LinkedIn to grow your authority and following?

2. Find the right people — Are you using LinkedIn effectively to find targeted prospects and gain reputable followers? 

3. Engage with insights — Are you actively publishing, reacting, commenting, and sharing conversation-worthy posts to initiate and join conversations in your industry? 

4. Build relationships — Are you effectively building genuine, trusted relationships and connections? 

SSI assesses whether you are maximizing LinkedIn for social selling or leaving opportunities and revenue on the table. 

Why is it important to track and improve your SSI?

Success on LinkedIn is part building relationships and part pleasing the algorithm. Our engagement metrics — like reactions and comments on our posts — show us how well our efforts perform, but we can’t see how the inner workings of the algorithm sway visibility and reach. 

That’s why we love the SSI score. When you monitor your SSI, you can uncover how the algorithm deems you successful and where it finds room for improvement. 

You can combine your perspective with this hard data to take steps that improve social selling success. 

A high SSI is connected to all-around more successful social selling, and LinkedIn has the data to prove it: 

• Social selling leaders create 45% more opportunities than peers with lower SSI.
• Social selling leaders are 51% more likely to reach quota.
• 78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media.

Those numbers make perfect sense, too — this simple graphic from LinkedIn sums up why social selling outperforms traditional sales approaches:

Traditional selling took a “quantity over quality” approach to lead generation. 

Social selling builds authentic and memorable relationships with the right people by leveraging data and social signals to initiate targeted conversations.  Staying on top of your SSI score helps you do just that. 

How do you check your social selling index score?

There are three ways to find your social selling index. 

1. Find your SSI Score in Sales Navigator 

Step 1 — Log in to LinkedIn Sales Navigator. 

Step 2 — Head to your account dropdown by clicking on your profile image in the top right corner. Select Social Selling Index from the dropdown.

Depending on your Sales Navigator plan, the steps to find your SSI score here may differ.

2. Access the Social Selling Index Directly 

Your SSI score used to be only accessible in Sales Navigator, but now any LinkedIn user can access it.  

Step 1 — Log into LinkedIn.

Step 2 — Visit www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi. 

The Social Selling Index dashboard automatically reflects your LinkedIn account. 

3. Track your SSI Score in Expandi 

Step 1 — Log into Expandi.

Step 2 — Monitor your SSI score in your Expandi dashboard. 

Expandi’s user-friendly interface places your SSI score front and center while offering additional analytics to track performance improvement over time. 

Your automated campaigns and LinkedIn inbox are also accessible nearby, creating the LinkedIn command station you need to supercharge success. 

What is a good LinkedIn SSI? Understanding your Social Selling Index Dashboard

Your SSI score tells you how LinkedIn evaluates your profile and engagement activity against peers in your industry. It’s a peek under the hood at what the algorithm weighs as most effective for social sales success. 

According to the LinkedIn Algorithm Insights Report 2024 V1.0:

• High SSI scores, particularly over 75, indicate efficient use of LinkedIn and greater commercial success. 
• SSI scores reflect your last 90 days of activity.

A higher SSI indicates a more active and successful use of LinkedIn, with each of the four pillars contributing up to 25 points to the total SSI score. 

To help users benchmark their score against their industry and peers, LinkedIn offers several context-setting metrics alongside the SSI. Here are the scores in the SSI dashboard:

• Current Social Selling Index — Halfway down the dashboard, the largest metric is your SSI score. To the right, you’ll see the four-pillar breakdown of your SSI score. 
• Top Industry SSI rank (top left) — This section benchmarks your score against others in your Industry. 
• Top Network SSI rank (top right) — This section benchmarks your SSI score against your overall LinkedIn network.
• People in your industry (bottom left) — This section shows the average SSI score for your industry (e.g., Advertising Services industry) and whether your score changed in the last week. 
• People in your network (bottom right) — This section shows the average SSI score for people in your network and how your score changed in the last week. 

Your SSI score is valuable information, but it’s not the whole picture. You should commit to improving your SSI score, but use this metric as a benchmark. Aim for visibility and growth in your score more than a particular number. 

And, of course, measure your sales success across your full-funnel sales activity and goals — not just by a single metric.

How to grow your LinkedIn social selling score: A proven workflow for 2025

LinkedIn doesn’t disclose every data point the algorithm measures to determine SSI. But the platform does clearly outline four key pillars to focus sales efforts and boost your SSI score. 

Pillar 1: Establish your professional brand

Ready to build a polished professional brand? Start by making the most of the real estate within your LinkedIn profile and publishing valuable content to grow a following. 

Your LinkedIn profile is your professional brand hub and should accurately reflect your skills, expertise, career trajectory, and professional focus areas. Each section of your profile is an opportunity to attract your target market, show off your skills, and build trust.

Let’s look at a few key factors for building a better LinkedIn profile. 

Pick an inviting profile picture and banner 

Your profile photo and banner image work together to create a positive and memorable impression. 

Your profile picture should show your face and be sized at 400 X 400 pixels or larger for the best quality. A professional or smartphone headshot is a good rule of thumb, but your photo can also display more personality, depending on your industry. 

Check that your profile photo is set to “All LinkedIn members” for maximum platform visibility or “Public” to enable people to find your profile through search engines. 

Your profile banner, the background image offsetting your profile picture, is prime real estate to share your value proposition, ideal target customer, or service offering at a glance. 

Your profile banner size should be 1584 px wide by 396 high px, with an aspect ratio of 4.1 for an ideal viewing experience on both desktop and mobile devices. 

No-code design tools like Canva offer flexible templates to create a polished and captivating banner image to enhance your profile. 

Optimize your profile headline and About section

Your profile headline — the copy beneath your name — conveys who you are and who you support in 220 characters or less. 

Your headline should be customer-focused and incorporate keywords naturally, and it should tell someone why they should build a professional relationship with you and work with you instead of a competitor or peer.  

For example, instead of ‘Sales Manager at Lead Engine,’ try ‘Helping B2B SaaS teams generate 50% more inbound leads at Lead Engine.’

Next, your About description explains your services, customers, accolades, goals, and values. 

Your About section is a more detailed version of your elevator pitch, sharing how you help people in your ICP achieve their goals, ideally with proof points to back up your claims. 

Your headline and About section work together to explain:

• What do you do for customers, teams, or employers? 
• What value do you provide or how are you different?
• What reputable clients, roles, or companies have you supported?
• What professional credentials do you have? 
• What industry, location, or customer type do you support?
• What past results, testimonials, or proof points can you share?

Complete all sections of your profile 

You’re almost there! You’ve added an authentic profile picture, a motivating profile banner, and a descriptive, customer-focused headline and About section. 

Now, you’re ready to add the rest of the details your ideal customers and clients will review when they visit your profile:

• Fill out your Experience section to itemize the roles you’ve held and companies you’ve supported. Add targeted keywords throughout your profile; try LinkedIn’s search filters to find relevant keywords reflecting your position or goals. 
• Complete your contact information, Education, Licenses and Certifications, and Skills to help people discover you through LinkedIn and offer a more complete representation of your professional experiences.  
• Request testimonials from colleagues and clients to build credibility in the Recommendations and Endorsements section.
• Display Featured media on your profile to grab your ICP’s attention —add posts, articles, case studies, newsletters, links, videos, or presentations to reflect your services, background, or SaaS solution.  
• Add a targeted Services section or volunteer experience, patents, or languages — anything relevant to make your profile stand out. 

Once you’ve completed all of the above, visit the “Add profile section” button at the top of your profile to ensure you haven’t missed anything and put on the finishing touches. 

Publish thought leadership 

Keep your profile up-to-date and active by publishing LinkedIn newsletters, articles, or long-form thought leadership posts to start building a respected, recognizable personal brand. 

Leverage your expertise, learnings, and positive results to write content that is:

• Customer-focused
• Niche-specific
• Interesting to your ICP

Focus on what your customers need and value to gain attention from your target audience and open the door to meaningful conversations. 

Want more on LinkedIn content strategy? We’ll dive even deeper under pillar three below. 

Pillar 2: Find and connect with the right people

Your SSI score measures the quality of your LinkedIn activity and the likelihood of sales success. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: This is a quality-over-quantity equation.

The “right people” are those matching your ideal customer profile or industry peers — people open to reading your content and receptive to connections or direct messages. 

“One of the biggest mistakes I see? Putting thousands of people in a campaign, but they’re not necessarily in your ICP or interested in what you’re doing. The response rate is going to be very low. You have to really work to find the right people to run successful campaigns.”

Here’s how to find the right people on LinkedIn. 

Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to build your perfect ICP 

LinkedIn’s search offers deep filters to slice and dice an audience to match your ICP. 

Combine filters like industry, job title, location, company name, and Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) for precise targeting to find the exact individuals from your target ICP or account list. 

Then, simply add your LinkedIn search URL to Expandi to pull that list into an automated Connector campaign and personalize connection requests at scale. 

By narrowing your search to specific variables, you can better personalize your connection request to be relevant to each lead’s industry or role (e.g., Hey [first name]. Since you’re a [job title] in [industry], I wanted to share our recent 2025 Top Trends white paper.  Would love to hear your thoughts!). 

Expandi even offers AI to write your messages, taking into account your campaign goal.  A thoughtful and personalized approach increases connection acceptance and response rates, which are key factors to improve your SSI score. 

“With Expandi, there’s a huge efficiency made through automation. Instead of sending connection requests one-by-one, we automate everything — personalized connection requests in bulk, within LinkedIn’s daily limits,” Kamoun explains. “We automate warming leads up, so your connection requests are sent each day within your personalized sequence, and it’s going to be safe within LinkedIn’s security parameters. It’s very, very optimized.”

Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to target a precise ICP 

Sales Navigator offers lots of ways to narrow down LinkedIn’s audience of more than 1 billion global members to a precise list of individuals matching your ICP. 

You can apply 50+ search filters, including:

• Job changers — people who recently took on a new role 
• Company headcount — people working at companies matching specific company sizes
• Past customers — people from companies that previously bought your solution
• Persona demographics — job function, seniority level, industry, geography
• Buyer intent — followed your company page or visited your profile recently 

Expandi has a direct integration with Sales Navigator making it super simple to build relevant campaigns and connect with various audiences at scale. 

For example, you could create a very simple Connector campaign in Expandi, targeting people who recently visited your profile (e.g., Hey, I saw you visited my profile. I’d love to connect! Anything I can help you with?). 

We tested this very campaign and connected with more than 53% of prospects before the campaign even finished. 

Pillar 3: Share and engage with insightful content

Sharing conversation-worthy content and commenting on other people’s posts improve both pillar one (building your professional brand) and pillar three. Here’s how you should approach those efforts.

Publish Thought Leadership 

The Social Selling Index score measures engagement received on your posts —  reposts, likes, and comments. 

When you receive a high volume of diverse engagement on a post, LinkedIn recognizes that you’re sharing high-quality content people enjoy or respond to. The algorithm takes this as its cue to boost your visibility. 

Here are some LinkedIn content strategy best practices to maximize your reach:

• Add value — Write long-form posts that share your perspective or experience on topics that resonate with your ICP to initiate conversations. What concerns them? How do you help them tackle challenges? What active conversations are they having? What trends or opportunities excite them?
• Write a great hook — The first 1-3 sentences (approximately 220 characters) of your post make up your “hook.” Nail your hook and readers are more likely to click “see more” to keep reading your post. 
• Be yourself — Share your experience, use “I” whenever possible, and show your expertise and the value you offer. 
• End with a strong call-to-action (CTA) — Tell your audience what next action to take, whether that’s sharing their point of view in the comments, visiting your website to read the latest blog post, or commenting a keyword to receive a free resource. 
• Format for scannability — Keep paragraphs short, adding line breaks every 2-3 sentences. Use bullet points or emojis to break up dense paragraphs and make the post easier to scan. (Try this tool to view your post’s formatting before you share.)
• Experiment with media and formats — Grab attention with images, try carousel or PDF posts to convey deeper information, showcase your credibility and personality on video, or increase engagement with polls.
• Monitor engagement — Track metrics like impressions, shares, and comments to identify what resonates with your audience.

Remember: Consistency is as important as quality. The LinkedIn algorithm rewards a consistent posting and commenting cadence by increasing the reach of your post. 

“The small changes that you make on a daily basis are going to have the biggest impact,” shares Kamoun. “Even if you’re dedicating 15 minutes a day to optimizing your profile or sharing meaningful engagement, that can lead to incremental improvements to make your profile more visible and improve your SSI score.”

Actively engage  with your target audience’s posts

It’s never all about us, right? That’s why LinkedIn rewards your active discussions on other people’s posts. 

Comments are the gold standard of engagement — over likes or reactions — since they show a deep interest in the post topic and create an active conversation. 

The 2024 LinkedIn Algorithm Insights report shows that:

• Posting 10 quality comments on others’ posts daily for a month can lead to a significant increase in profile views (40%), engagement on your content (25%), and follower/connection growth (20%).
• Each comment on your post translates to a 5% boost in reach within your network, and a 2.8% rise in the commenter’s network.
• Comments exceeding 15 words are twice as impactful as shorter comments.

Frequently engage with your audience’s content to regularly show up in their orbit. Add value to the conversation by sharing what you find interesting about their post, your experience related to the post topic, or similar trends you’ve seen. Spending a few minutes writing a thoughtful comment garners more favor with the algorithm (and drives more impact) than any “great post!” comment. 

Pro tip: Use Expandi to scrape a lead list of all of the individuals who liked or commented on a post from you, a competitor, or an influencer in your industry. Then send an automated LinkedIn DM campaign to all of those people, referencing the post and continuing a more intimate conversation in DMs. 

Check out the results of a content retargeting campaign where we scraped the likes and comments of a viral LinkedIn post and reached out to connect with commenters using the following template:

Ultimately, you can grow your SSI score via pillar three by creating (and commenting on) content that motivates engagement and conversation. 

Pillar 4: Build strong relationships instead of selling

The final pillar is the culmination of all the practices we’ve already covered. Use LinkedIn to build strong relationships with the right people, not simply sell (or spam) high volumes of cold prospects. 

Focus on quality industry connections and decision-makers

Pay attention to influencers and decision-makers in your industry. Notice who is initiating highly engaged conversations on LinkedIn, and connect with them or join the conversation in the comments. 

The SSI score measures how many connections you have, their leadership signals in your network, and how many of your connection requests are accepted. Use LinkedIn search or Sales Navigator to find influential people in your industry and send personalized outreach.  

Pro tip: Improve your odds of leads accepting your connection requests by using an Expandi Builder campaign to automate lead warm-up. 

“Builder campaigns may feel a bit complex, but they’re quite simple. It’s a small sequence that you build where you warm up your potential lead, or you can even start with a prebuilt template.” explains Kamoun.  

“You customize your sequence. For example, you might first visit their profile. After a day, you like their last post. After a few of these interactions, they start to notice you. Only then do you send the connection request and start talking. This is all automated by Expandi — you don’t have to do it by hand.”

The likelihood of this person answering is higher than just sending a random cold request. And if you run these campaigns at scale, all of this activity is going to boost your SSI score.

Work on your relationships 

Gaining a new connection is great, particularly from an industry thought leader. But that’s when the real work of nurturing and building a new relationship begins. Do that by: 

• Commenting on your new connections’ posts and engaging in active conversation.
• Acknowledging professional milestones, like a new role, certification, or project launch. 
• Sharing free, valuable resources, such as guides, case studies, or insights without asking for anything in return. 
• Personally inviting new connections to events or webinars you are hosting or attending. 

Don’t connect en masse and then ghost your new connections. Take the time to find common ground and opportunities to reach out in more personal ways. That’s how you’ll build recognition, trust, and meaningful professional relationships — and boost your SSI along the way. 

Grow your social listening index 10x faster

SSI is a helpful metric to measure progress, boost your success rates on LinkedIn, and drive meaningful sales quota. 

By consistently optimizing your profile, engaging with valuable content, and connecting with the right people, you can improve your SSI score and your pipeline.

But let’s be real: Keeping up with all these activities manually is time-consuming. That’s where Expandi comes in. With Expandi, you can automate connection requests, personalize outreach at scale, and track your SSI score — all in one platform.Expandi users see 5-7% higher response rates on LinkedIn. Ready to scale your outreach? Start your free trial today.