Social selling involves four steps: building your brand, connecting, interacting, and measuring results. In our experience as an enterprise marketing agency, we often find the last step is the hardest for our clients—but it doesn’t have to be.
There are three key metrics to track when it comes to social selling: profile metrics, activity metrics, and people metrics. Here’s how to measure each of them.
Profile metrics
Who’s viewed your profile: The more engaged you are on LinkedIn, the more this number should increase. (It’s the first number you see in the left-hand column on the home page of LinkedIn.) Review it weekly or monthly to see if your LinkedIn actions are attracting views.
Search appearances: This shows whether people can find you. You’ll appear in more searches when the words in your profile match the ones people frequently search. At MarketLogic, we call this planned serendipity. You don’t know who’s looking for you, but you need to be visible and available so they can find and connect with you.
To make this easier, make sure your profile—especially the headlines—is replete with the keywords that are critical for being found in your field. Also, keep building your connections. The more network you have, the more frequently and the higher up you’ll appear in searches.
Activity metrics
Who viewed your post: This number is misleading because it reflects the number of times your content shows up in people’s feeds, not how many people click on and view your content.
Social actions (likes, shares, comments): These are much more important stats to focus on than those who viewed your post. They reflect engagement with your posts and show how many people your content is influencing.
As you compare the social interaction the posts have generated, answer these main personal branding questions:
- What topics generate the most engagement?
- Which type of content (long articles, how-to’s, lists, very technical articles, etc.) has the overlarge impact?
- Which gets more interaction: my articles or the content I curate and post?
- What content gets the most shares? Shares reflect how viral your content is. When people share your content, they’re making it available to their connections – significantly amplifying its visibility.
People metrics
The number of connections: If you’re active in your field and on LinkedIn, your network should be growing. You can have up to 30,000. To turn your connection, add people you meet to your LinkedIn network and reach out to LinkedIn members you’d like to have.
The number of followers: Followers are people who follow your content but are not officially connections. If you post regularly, this number should be increasing. A follower number is a way to evaluate the impact of your content.
People also viewed: Click on your profile in the left-hand column of the home page, and you’ll see a section called “People also viewed.” Check this regularly and ask yourself: Are these people in my community? Are these thought leaders and experts with whom I’d like to be associated?
The number of endorsements: Your overall number isn’t crucial. The number of endorsements for your skills, on the other hand, is essential – especially for your top three skills. Because they’re the only people see when they view your profile.
Work to get more endorsements for the skills for which you want to be known. Since skills show in your LinkedIn profile from highest to lowest quantity of endorsements, make sure your main skills get a share.
Use these metrics to make sure your LinkedIn efforts are having the best possible impact. Not happy with your results? Using an outsourced marketing agency can help ensure your social selling strategy is on point.
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