Social Selling Pillar #5: Measure Meaningful Metrics

Where the rubber meets the road in sales is revenue. Not the number of meetings a rep got. Not the number of demos they gave last month. Not even how many times they dialed the phone. 

So why do so many sales organizations still measure and report on these metrics? In the era of social selling, sales leaders should unburden themselves from these non-essential numbers and start “measuring meaningful metrics,” my fifth social selling pillar. 

But I fully understand that measurement in social selling is tricky. One tweet sent doesn’t automatically translate into one order. If only it were that linear! 

However, a clear correlation has been proven between social selling smarts and revenue metrics. Reps who have a higher than average LinkedIn social selling index (SSI) create 45 percent more opportunities per quarter and are 51 percent more likely to hit quota as compared to those with below average SSI scores. 

While it can be difficult today to directly measure the impact that social selling has on the bottom line, you can start by measuring these indicators of social capital. 

• Klout score. Klout measures users’ social presence and assigns a score from 1-100, which makes it easy to compare your degree of influence to others’. Reps should measure their Klout score as they begin a social selling initiative, and track how it changes over time.

• SSI. LinkedIn’s social selling index ranks a salesperson’s proficiency on four social selling tenets: Create a professional brand, find the right people, engage with insights, and build strong relationships. Each is assigned a value from 1-25, and the four numbers are totaled for an overall SSI score. Again, track fluctuations over time.

• Size and quality of network. Bigger is usually better, but not always. Quality of contacts should also be considered. For instance, how many director-level contacts does a given rep have? How many third-party influencers and experts? Today, a sales representative’s network is their net worth.

• Source of deal. Consider adding a field for “source of deal” to your CRM to see just how many opportunities are coming in through social channels.

• Content sharing. All sorts of tools on the market today promise the dream of being able to measure which sales reps are sharing content and to what effect. But who should own this reporting? I think you need to look at where similar initiatives are owned already, and recruit a strong champion with exemplary communication skills. Personally, I think social selling metrics are best owned by sales enablement, but they could feasibly live elsewhere. Social selling is cross-functional, so what may work for one company might not make sense at another.  

As for having the time to analyze and report on these metrics, you’ll be surprised at how many hours are freed after you dump the meaningless measures. Out with the old, in with the new. 

And don’t just stop at measuring—sales leaders should also celebrate social selling success to reinforce the practice. Use an internal collaboration platform to share stories about reps doing social selling well and recognize them publicly, or add some gamification to the mix by naming a “Social Selling Superhero of the Month.” Once you start rewarding social selling practices, others will follow suit, and you’ll have an organization of social selling superheroes in no time!

  Editor's note: This post is adapted from Jill Rowley's blog series about social selling on http://blog.hubspot.com.