Social selling is on the raise. LinkedIn has become the platform for B2B SaaS sales engagement for good reason.
It’s where most of our ideal customers are actively spending their time networking, consuming content and even trying to make sales for themselves.
By working with social selling on LinkedIn, even a small team can punch above its weight and consistently fill the sales pipeline with qualified leads.
Our inhouse team is standing proof.
We drink our own medicine, but we also believe that sharing is caring. That’s why we’re showcasing only actionable guides that are making results for us. We’re not gatekeepers.
Without further ado, let’s dive in!
What’s special about social selling
Unlike traditional cold calling or email blasts, social selling on LinkedIn is about assembling relationships and providing value before the sale.
Instead of a hard pitch, reps engage prospects through content, insightful comments, and personalized interactions. It’s a more authentic, two-way approach, and as long as we can confirm it - it works.
Top social sellers consistently outperform their peers on sales metrics. LinkedIn’s own data shows that sellers with high social selling activity create 45% more opportunities and are 51% more likely to hit quota than those with lower activity.
To make it easier for all of us, LinkedIn crafted a Social Selling Index (SSI) to quantify and visualize these efforts.
That’s why I’ll break down how to master each element of social selling with actionable steps, and our own examples.
My goal is simple: to help you transform LinkedIn into an effective, repeatable sales pipeline for your SaaS business. I’ll also show how to scale these tactics using product-led tools like HeyReach, all while keeping things personal and authentic.
⚠️ Note that I’ll focus on ethical, value-driven strategies— no shady scraping or spam bots. It’s about working smarter on LinkedIn, not gaming the system.
Understanding and improving LinkedIn Social Selling Index
To measure your social selling performance, LinkedIn provides the Social Selling Index (SSI)—a score from 0 to 100 that measures how effectively you’re leveraging LinkedIn across four pillars.
You can see mine down below, and you can check your SSI at any time (LinkedIn makes it available to all users now, typically via the Sales Navigator SSI page).
What’s every part of the Social Selling Index telling you?
- Establishing your professional brand: How complete and credible your profile is, and how regularly you share valuable content.
- Finding the right people: Your success in connecting with relevant prospects (quality of network growth, not just quantity).
- Engaging with insights: Your interaction with posts and industry content (both posting and engaging with others).
- Building relationships: The strength of your relationships, measured by conversations in the inbox and mutual connections.
Each pillar contributes up to 25 points, and together they form your SSI score.
For B2B sellers, an SSI above ~70 is considered strong, whereas 40-70 is average and below 40 is weak.
Don’t obsess over the number, look at it more as a useful checkpoint, rather than an end goal of optimization.
LinkedIn claims that a higher SSI correlates with 78% more sales results compared to peers who aren’t active on social media, but a closed sales is not a direct consequence of high SSI!
So how do you improve your Social Selling Index Score?
The short answer: by excelling in each of the four areas.
In practice, this means optimizing your LinkedIn presence and routine:
- Personal brand: Create a unique brand (complete profile + regular posting) to improve that first pillar.
- Network: Grow your professional network carefully by connecting with prospects and industry influencers (second pillar).
- Engagement: Engage consistently with insights—share posts, comment thoughtfully, and join group discussions.
- Relationships (your inbox): Nurture relationships via messages and follow-ups, rather than one-off pitches.
I’ll unpack each of these in dedicated sections. Importantly, I’ll highlight how to simplify and scale your efforts using HeyReach for growth, and other tools without resorting to spam.
Building a professional brand on LinkedIn
The foundation of social selling success is your LinkedIn profile and personal brand. This is your digital first impression—a proxy for your credibility.
An optimized professional profile will not only increase your SSI, but also attract more inbound interest.
Here’s how to establish a strong professional brand on LinkedIn:
1. Headline that delivers value
Ditch the generic job title. Instead, your headline should immediately tell prospects what outcome they can expect if they collaborate with you.
Observe how headline on Vuk's profile (sharing our CMO as an example #1 is not just a flex, I promise).
His headline immediately signals his expertise in growth and positioning in specific industry and specific time and point of business development.
The headline shouldn’t be just a title.
It's actually a promise of results, backed by his work and results. And what he publicly shares regularly in his LinkedIn posts and YouTube channel.
2. Profile picture that attracts
Choose a high-quality, professional yet approachable headshot.
Profiles with photos get up to 21x more views and 9x more connection requests than those without.
Ensure good lighting, a friendly expression, and a clean background to establish trust. Avoid logos or casual selfies—this is your virtual handshake.
As we’re drinking our own medicine - showcasing our CEO’s headshot as the quality, professional, yet approachable… headshot!
3. Banner image
Don't let that valuable space go to waste. Use your banner to reinforce your brand, industry expertise, outcome, promise… or just vibe, that’s also fine.
You have various options.
1️⃣ A clean, relevant image can subtly promote your value proposition without being overtly salesy.
2️⃣ Playful but effective CTA relevant to your brand & product/service.
3️⃣ Ask questions that hit the target – directly into the most painful pain point (you see what I did there?)
4️⃣ Or you can just count on your target audience’s ego. That’s also a relevant tactic.
4️⃣ We opt for deliverable results and outcomes.
4. Connect authentically in your "About" action
This is your chance to speak directly to your ideal client. Address their challenges and showcase how your expertise provides solutions.
For example, our CRO, Ilija, connects by sharing his career transition and offering direct help: "Senior sales insurance agent turned marketing enthusiast... I’ll do my best to provide you with the right answers from my experience."
I also love clean and on point About’s that answer all FAQ your ICP may have about collaborating with you; like this one from Anna Tankel. They tend be quite performing as well.
Story telling, or being informative – whatever you choose make sure you make it relatable, not just a list of past jobs that’s already available.
5. Experience and recommendations
Focus on achievements, not just responsibilities. Highlight measurable results that demonstrate your expertise.
This may not be the humblest move, but here’s part of my experience formatting as an example:
Ask for recommendations from clients or colleagues—these serve as social proof, making prospects more likely to trust and engage with you.
6. Skills and other sections: Add up to 50 relevant skills to grow your profile's searchability and credibility.
Prioritize skills that align with your industry and expertise—these help recruiters and clients find you.
If you have certifications, publications, or projects, showcase them in the relevant sections to strengthen your profile.
I personally love these sections, as they can tell me a lot about what a person cares about when it comes to self development, and activities outside of KPIs and productivity metrics in their role – which can be great conversation openers!
Also, LinkedIn’s Profile Strength meter encourages you to reach "All-Star" status, which increases your discoverability in searches.
7. Keeping your profile fresh
An optimized LinkedIn profile isn’t static. Stay active and keep it updated to reflect the latest trends in social selling efforts.
Turn on Creator Mode (a LinkedIn feature that improves visibility) if you post valuable content regularly.
Updating your headline, featured content, and LinkedIn posts periodically ensures that your profile stays relevant to your industry peers and potential customers. This ongoing effort contributes to your personal brand and supports your strategy.
💡For more guidance, check out our thorough guide on how to network on LinkedIn—it covers profile optimization and authority-building steps to take before reaching out to prospects.
Remember that building a strong professional network takes time.
Don’t be discouraged if you’re not an overnight thought leader. By consistently presenting yourself and sharing relevant content to your target audience, you’ll gradually become a relevant voice in your industry.
As your profile strength and content engagement grow, so will your inbound connection requests and follower count. That’s when LinkedIn social selling truly starts working for you.
Finding the right prospects (and growing your network)
With a solid profile in place, the next step is to strategically build your network and find the right people to connect with— who fit your target buyer persona or can influence a sale.
It’s not about making a lot of random connections in social selling; it’s about finding relevant prospects among LinkedIn's millions of users.
Here’s how to do it:
Before taking any action define your ICP
To grow social selling efforts, start by identifying your ideal customer profile (ICP).
- What industry do they belong?
- How much revenue does the company gather? Or in which development phase are they
- What roles do your ICP have?
- What do they struggle with?
- How can they improve their positioning - as an employee and as a company? How can you help them – with your knowledge and product/service.
Here's an example on how I’ve defined my ICP before creating any content, or starting any action when with engagement and network growth.
This also helps me with the prospecting and qualification process and when crafting my outreach strategy.
Find relevant people on LinkedIn and connect with them
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to target the right decision-makers that match your ICP, narrowing results by industry, job title, company size, and region. Create lead list form it and start exploring profiles and connecting with them.
Or if you’re feeling playful, try getting that list in CVS - or crafting one from your website visitors - and uploading it to HeyReach to automating this whole process of establishing first contact. Save your time for nurturing conversation afterwards.
Here are the quick steps how to optimize growth of your LinkedIn account:
- Create a HeyReach free trial and connect your LinkedIn account.
- Upload your CSV lead table or import them from Sales Navigator (or Clay, or RB2B..)
- Create a simple conditioned sequence, and take over from automation once the prospect connects (or answer your cold outreach)
👉🏻Detailed instructions on how to launch your first campaign.
I use a quite basic one – you can see it in the following example - but it got me 40% acceptance rate just because I’ve done my homework on ICPs. Personally, I don’t use connection messages or inMail ones, but you have that option if you need one.
Beyond direct connection, make sure to explore LinkedIn Groups and industry events to connect with engaged professionals. Joining social networks aligned with your sector helps identify potential customers already active in discussions.
In HeyReach, we love to combine relevant online and offline events, networking groups, and gatherings.
We’re not really into passive waiting, so we always encourage people to find us and connect. Like our CEO Nick does whenever he’s participating in a relevant event.
Follow a consistent networking routine
Consistency in networking builds results, there are no seasonal sparks on social media platforms (if there is one that works that way please share with me ).
Setting realistic monthly goals is essential here. I’m talking about all activities here – you need to set up productivity metrics for content creation, posting, prospecting, outreach, conversion. Everything needs to be planned out.
Whether you’re using manual approach or automation tools, you need to be aware of LinkedIn's usage limits. (Yes, I know people hitting limits manually, it’s possible)
Limits may vary, based on your account type and SSI, but it’s going anywhere from 100 to 250 connections on a weekly basis.
💡If your growth or sales team has big monthly quota you can rely on Sender rotation and Unified inbox features and rotate multiple accounts in one campaign. More in the following sections.
Finally, keep your connection outreach organized. If you’re doing 100s of invites, track who has accepted and who hasn’t. LinkedIn allows you to withdraw pending invites (after ~2 weeks if there is no response; you might clean them out to avoid hitting limits).
If someone accepts but doesn’t respond to your intro message, that’s okay—they’re now in your network for future nurturing.
Network Beyond Prospects
Social selling it’s about visibility and being recognized as someone who builds long term relationships, its authority in its field, and knows its business.
However, there are a few steps you can take to speed this up. These two work wonders for us:
- Engaging with influencers, industry leaders, and existing customers strengthens credibility and builds trust.
When prospects see mutual connections with people they respect, they’re more likely to respond. - Team effort makes a massive difference. When your team consistently interacts with each other’s content, it amplifies reach and visibility, skyrockets the inbound lead generation results… you name it, it all goes faster.
This happens because every team member has built strong relationships with different networks, so everyone is getting exposed to the different opportunities.
As usual, at HeyReach, we’re not just talking about this—we’re doing the walk.
Engaging with insights (content and interaction strategies)
Speaking of engagement. Finding the right people is just one part of the equation. To truly excel at social selling, you need to engage with insights—which means sharing valuable content and interacting with others’ content in significant ways.
In LinkedIn’s SSI framework, this is the third pillar, and it’s critical for staying on your prospects’ radar.
Here’s how to craft an effective LinkedIn content strategy and engagement routine:
Post Valuable Content Regularly
Becoming a trusted voice in your industry doesn’t require you to be a professional writer or influencer—just share what you know, what you do, and your unique experience.
The key to LinkedIn social selling is providing valuable content that resonates with your target audience.
Mix up content types, such as:
- Thought leadership posts—quick insights from a project, a take on industry news, or a common myth debunked.
These are the fave types of our CMO, and you can lurk through his LinkedIn for more inspiration on this format.
For myth debunking specialities you need to have in depth knowledge of every pain point any of your ICPs have. So be careful around that one. The real deal in our team who help us all to demystify things is definitely our CRO, he is the best address to steal the templates for this one.
- Long-form articles or newsletters—if you enjoy writing, publishing in-depth posts can reinforce your authority. Just make sure to don’t lose the track of thought and the point of the article.
In our team this would be me. My posts are so long I cannot screenshot them, sorry. - Visual content—infographics, short videos, or document posts—helps your content stand out in the feed.
We all use variations of visual content in our posts, but here’s our CEO just for sake of balance.
- Customer success stories—showcase a challenge you helped solve , improvement you’ve made in customer journey, results and targets you’ve helped your users to reach.
Customer success is your strongest point here, as it is ours! Posts like this help ease the trust. Your potential customers can see that your internal team knows what’s doing, and how the industry works.
- Product showcase. There’s no one knowing your product better than your internal team. Or at least that should be the case. I’ve seen so many cases where (potential) customers are not even aware of all possibilities of the tool. Talk about it publicly, loudly, on repeat.
Whenever our account executive shares post on LinkedIn or Loom on our Slack - I’m in disbelief what our tool is able to do, honestly.
- Personal experiences. Being vulnerable and sharing your point of view and your journey is not for the weak. Yet, this is the type of content it makes people sharing the same values with you connect on a deeper level.
Believe it or not, our head of sales is beating us all in this.
The key is relevance—post about topics your potential customers care about, such as sales strategies, compliance tips, or market trends.
Over time, this builds credibility and engagement, making your audience look forward to your posts—an invaluable advantage in social selling on LinkedIn.
To go deeper into preparing compelling LinkedIn content that brings engagement, check out this podcast episode, which explores practical strategies for building a strong presence through valuable and authentic posts.
Engage with content from right people
Social selling isn’t broadcasting, you need interaction for relationship building.
Instead of passively scrolling, refine your LinkedIn feed to surface relevant discussions from prospects, industry leaders, and influencers.
Filtering your feed for meaningful engagement
- Use the My Network → Connections tab to find posts from key people.
- Follow, rather than connect immediately, to prioritize their posts in your feed.
- Save direct links to target profiles in a bookmark folder for quick access.
- Turn on notification for relevant people from the industry
- Use LinkedIn’s search filters to find recent posts in your industry and join timely discussions.
Engagement that gets you noticed
Generic comments don’t drive conversations. A specific, thoughtful response—or even a respectful counterpoint—adds value and makes you more visible.
A well-placed comment on an industry leader’s post can lead to profile views, inbound connection requests, and direct conversations.
Engage meaningfully, be yourself.
For me, it means doing enrichment with GIF (autocorrect keeps claiming they’re gifts - who am I to oppose?), but you do you.
Whatever is your approach make sure you’re adding to conversation, especially when you're engaging with content from influencers in the niche you’re targeting.
The chances that your sales opportunities will have their eyeballs on that piece of content and your name and headline is huge!
Warming up prospects
Interacting consistently with few touches (post likes, comments, follows) before sending a connection request makes outreach feel natural.
If they’ve seen your name in discussions, they’re more likely to accept and respond.
Becoming an active contributor—not just a passive spectator—is key to social selling.
Share content consistently, engage meaningfully, and leverage smart tools to stay efficient without losing authenticity.
Over time, you’ll notice your LinkedIn social selling efforts paying off—more engagement, increased inbound connection requests, and better traction with potential customers.
One more tip: Maintain a content calendar. It could be as simple as planning topics for each week. This helps avoid the “what should I post today?” panic. And repurpose content—if you wrote a blog or did a webinar, break it into bite-sized LinkedIn posts. Maximum mileage, minimal fresh effort.
Building relationships beyond the first touch
Engaging via content and connection requests sets the stage, but real sales happen in one-on-one conversations.
The fourth SSI pillar—Building Relationships—is about what you do after the connection is made.
This means nurturing leads in the LinkedIn inbox and developing genuine rapport over time, rather than going for an immediate pitch and moving on.
Here’s how to cultivate relationships that eventually convert:
- Start meaningful conversations
When a prospect accepts your connection request, avoid immediately sending a sales pitch. Instead, send a personalized message to start a natural conversation. Like you’d do in private life.
“Hi Jane, thanks for connecting! I noticed you’re expanding your sales team—how’s hiring going? We’re quite struggling to find the right fit.”
Kevin Wencel made a good point (not so recently in LinkedIn years) - cold outreach doesn’t have to be cold. His answers on generic cold outreach may sound harsh, but it’s actually helpful to anyone trying to do proper outreach:
- Do your research
- Be as specific as you can
- Make me feel special, like you know me for real
To do so focus to answer on following questions
- Where did you find them, and why is this relevant?
- What challenge are you able to solve for them?
- Is this worth solving for them right now? - this you need to find out through conversation.
If they respond, focus on listening and adding value. Ask questions, share your thoughts, or send a useful link.
In social selling, you build relationships like they are friendships (I’ve witnessed some became) that could lead to opportunities down the road.
- Provide value in the inbox
One way to strengthen connections is by occasionally sharing something useful with no strings attached.
If you come across an insightful report or publish a case study that aligns with their interests, share it:
“Hey John, I found an updated version of the cybersecurity report—thought of you given our last conversation on compliance. Let me know if it’s helpful!”
Another approach is inviting them to relevant webinars, events, or LinkedIn Groups.
Even if they don’t attend, it positions you as a helpful resource and keeps your LinkedIn social selling index strong by fostering engagement.
- Timing your ask
When should you transition to discussing a business opportunity? Look for buyer intent signals—a prospect mentioning a challenge your solution solves, engaging with your content, or showing increased profile activity.
At that point, suggest a low-pressure conversation:
“I noticed X is a priority for you. We recently helped a company solve that challenge — worth brainstorming?”
This approach feels collaborative rather than transactional.
If they’re not ready, don’t push.
Continue nurturing the relationship by checking in occasionally with valuable updates.
“Hey, we just launched a feature addressing XYZ—thought of you since we discussed that topic. Let me know if you’d like details.”
Persistence with value—not pressure—keeps you in their orbit.
- Scale your inbox management
As your social selling efforts grow, managing multiple conversations can become overwhelming. But you need to persist!
You may need assistance, or simply to go on vacation, and to keep things running smoothly. I’m under NDA, so I probably shouldn’t share this, but we at HeyReach - we use our own tool to optimize this process.
Our Head of support can showcase you how this is easy like one two three:
HeyReach’s Unibox simplifies this by consolidating all messages from multiple LinkedIn accounts into a single inbox, allowing your team to manage conversations efficiently.
For example, if your team operates three LinkedIn accounts with 50+ active conversations, Unibox ensures no message is missed.
You can assign leads, track responses, and maintain timely follow-ups—boosting the LinkedIn social selling index by ensuring consistent engagement.
- Account rotation for team selling
Another advanced strategy is using HeyReach’s Account Rotation to engage cold leads from a fresh perspective.
If the lead list is huge, and the campaign cannot be executed by one team member, the whole team can step in – ensuring outreach stays within LinkedIn’s limits.
Combination of Sender rotation and Unibox works well for sales and growth teams, ensuring multiple touchpoints without appearing overly persistent. It also allows team members to cover for each other—if one is unavailable, another can step in seamlessly to maintain continuity.
- Nurture for the long term
Not every connection converts quickly, and that’s okay. Some may become customers months later, while others might refer you to someone in need.
Reminder: social selling is about long-term relationship building, not just quick wins.
Stay engaged with your LinkedIn network by commenting on posts, congratulating them on milestones, and occasionally checking in.
Over time, these small interactions build trust, ensuring that when they’re ready to buy, you’re top of mind.
By combining personalized engagement, valuable content, and smart outreach strategies, you can scale LinkedIn social selling while maintaining authenticity and effectiveness.
Measuring success beyond SSI
We’ve talked a lot about the Social Selling Index, but it’s not the only way to measure your social selling success on LinkedIn— nor should it be the ultimate goal.
SSI is a useful benchmark to improve the right behaviors, but hopefully, you care about real outcomes: qualified leads, opportunities, and revenue.
"KPIs are essential in social selling because they shift the focus from vanity metrics to actual business impact. Engagement is great, but at the end of the day, what matters is how many relationships turn into meaningful sales conversations and revenue." — Tim Hughes, CEO of DLA Ignite and author of Social Selling: Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers
So, let’s discuss key performance indicators (KPIs) and tools to track your social selling program comprehensively.
Monitor SSI trends, not just the score
It’s fine to track your SSI periodically (say, monthly). Watch the breakdown of the four components— which ones need improvement?
For instance, if “Engaging with Insights” is lagging, maybe you need to post or comment more.
If “Building Relationships” is low, you might not be sending enough follow-up messages or InMails.
Use SSI as a directional guide.
Also, note how your score changes as you implement strategies from this guide. Did it increase after a month of regular posting? That feedback can be motivating. (also, let us now!)
However, don’t chase SSI for vanity’s sake. A high SSI with no deals to show for it doesn’t pay the bills. Which brings us to real sales KPIs.
Define social selling KPIs
Beyond SSI, track key social selling metrics:
- Connection acceptance rate—what percentage of your connection requests get accepted? (Aim for 30-40%+.)
- Response rate to initial messages—how many connections reply to your outreach?
No worries, you don’t have to count manually, HeyReach does that for you as well. Just choose the date range, senders, and campaigns – or have the complete team overview.
- Content engagement metrics—track post views, likes, comments, and profile visits.
- Leads generated—count LinkedIn-driven sales calls, demos, or SQLs.
- Conversion rate—measure how many LinkedIn-sourced leads become customers.
- Sales cycle & deal size—whether LinkedIn-influenced deals close faster or are larger in value.
- Referral mentions— track instances where prospects say, “I saw your post” or “X referred me via LinkedIn.”
Tag LinkedIn-generated leads in your CRM for better tracking and attribution. Or integrate HeyReach with your favorite sales software, and it’ll get automatically updated.
Use tools to analyze performance
- LinkedIn Dashboard—Shows profile views, post performance, and search appearances. Rising numbers signal increased visibility.
- Shield Analytics—engagement trends for heavy content users.
- HeyReach Dashboard—connection requests, reply rates, and campaign success. If a template underperforms, A/B test alternatives.
- CRM Tracking—Integrate LinkedIn pain points into your sales pipeline.
Solicit feedback & stay adaptive
Ask your team if LinkedIn is warming up cold leads and improving outreach.
Adapt based on results—LinkedIn’s algorithm and social selling strategies evolve, so keep testing content types, posting cadences, and outreach approaches.
Beyond LinkedIn–multi-touch attribution
Social selling doesn’t work in isolation—it complements email, calls, and marketing campaigns.
Track LinkedIn’s role in nurturing prospects before they respond via another channel. Define measurable goals, such as:
- Book 10 extra meetings per month via LinkedIn.
- Grow target account connections by 100 contacts this quarter.
- Increase LinkedIn referral traffic by X%.
By combining SSI tracking with real sales KPIs, you can demonstrate the impact of LinkedIn social selling and optimize efforts for better results.
Socialize your sales activities (pun intended)
Mastering social selling on LinkedIn is an experience—it won’t happen overnight, but with a structured approach, any B2B SaaS startup can turn LinkedIn into a high-performing sales channel.
Establishing your professional brand is the first step, ensuring your profile reflects credibility and expertise.
A well-optimized LinkedIn presence, combined with a strong network and consistent engagement, creates visibility and trust.
Ethical automation boosts outreach, but it’s authentic engagement that turns connections into real opportunities.
By tracking key metrics—not just your LinkedIn SSI score but actual sales KPIs—you can refine your marketing strategy, prove its value, and continuously improve your results.
Remember, social selling is about helping, sharing, and earning trust, not just making sales.
The more value you provide, the more naturally prospects will turn to you when they need a solution.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your approach, resources like this guide can offer insights, but you need to start applying, testing and adapting. See what works for you.
Be consistent, and soon enough, LinkedIn will be a major driver of your sales pipeline.
If you want tailored advice for your specific situation, we’re here to help. In fact, as a next step, we invite you to schedule a 1-on-1 strategic call with Nađa Komnenić, our resident LinkedIn growth expert at HeyReach.
Take the leap and make LinkedIn your competitive advantage in B2B sales. Your future clients are out there scrolling right now—ensure your voice and solution are what they find.
Happy social selling!
