How to get started with LinkedIn social selling: comment first, pitch later, and count the calls

Social selling on LinkedIn means using your profile, your posts and your conversations there to get to know buyers before you ask them for anything. It works because a buyer who has seen your name a few times, and found something useful from you, is far more likely to take a call than a stranger.

It's slower than a cold call and faster than waiting for referrals. Done well, it warms up the people you'd call anyway.

The guides that rank for this search mostly come from companies selling LinkedIn tools and data, and many push a paid product as step one. You can start with a free account, a clear profile and 30 minutes a day.

A word on scores. LinkedIn's Social Selling Index page describes the SSI as a score "from 0 to 100" covering how well you "establish a professional brand, find the right prospects, engage with key insights, and build relationships". The same page now says "A high SSI score doesn't always represent the efficacy of a sales person or correlate with measurable sales outcomes." Count the calls it brings instead.

When a buyer gets your connection request or sees your comment, they'll click your name. In a few seconds they decide whether you're worth talking to. Your profile has to answer: who do you help, with what, and why trust you?

• Photo: a clear, recent face. Nothing else matters here.
• Headline: who you help and what changes for them. "Helping clinics cut admin time with better scheduling" beats "Account Executive at [company]".
• About section: three short paragraphs. The problem your buyers have, how you help, and one example of someone you helped. End with how to reach you.
• Featured: one useful thing, like a short guide, a checklist or a post that did well. Skip the brochure.
• Experience: a line under your current job saying what your clients get from you.

Read it as your buyer would. If they'd need to know your industry's jargon to understand it, rewrite it.

Quality beats count. A network of 400 of the right buyers is worth more than 5,000 random connections, because your posts show up for the people who matter.

Start from your ideal customer profile: the kind of company and the role that buys. Then connect with:

1. Buyers at companies that fit, especially ones you plan to call this quarter.
2. People who influence those buyers: their advisers, partners and the people they read.
3. Past clients and colleagues. They're your referrals, and their activity shows your name to their networks.
4. Peers in your field, a few. They'll comment, which helps your posts travel.

Add a short note to every request when you can. Say why you're connecting, in one line, with no pitch.

If you sell to a short list of named companies, account based sales development covers mapping the people at each one.

This is the part most sellers skip, and it does the most work. Before you message a buyer, comment on what they post, two or three times over a couple of weeks.

A useful comment adds something: a question, a short example from your work, a respectful disagreement. "Great post!" adds nothing and gets ignored.

After a few of these, your name is familiar. When your message arrives, it's from someone they recognise.

You don't need to post every day. Two or three posts a week, written for your buyers, is plenty. Write about what you see in your work:

• A problem your clients keep having, and what helped.
• A mistake you made and what you learned.
• A question buyers ask you on calls, with your honest answer.
• A short before-and-after from a client, with their permission.

Keep posts short, start with the point, and end with a question buyers might answer. Skip the motivational quotes and the "10 lessons from my morning walk". Your buyers follow you for what you know about their problem.

The goal of a LinkedIn conversation is a call or a meeting. A long message thread that never becomes a call has wasted both of your time.

When someone has accepted your request and you've exchanged a comment or two, send a short message with a reason and a small ask:

If they reply with a question, answer it, then ask again for the call. If they say not now, ask when would be better and write the date down. If they don't reply, one follow-up a week later with something new is enough. Then leave it and keep commenting.

Don't paste a pitch into the connection request, and don't send the same message to 200 people. Buyers can tell.

The days can move around. What matters is that each week has some connecting, some commenting, a little posting and a few messages that ask for a call. The prospecting system guide shows how to fit a routine like this into the rest of your week.

• Automated messages and mass connection requests, which read as automated and get ignored.
• Pitching in the first message. It's the fastest way to be ignored.
• Posting for other salespeople. Likes from peers feel good and bring no buyers.
• Chasing a score. As LinkedIn's own page says, a high SSI doesn't necessarily mean sales.
• Stopping after two weeks. It takes a month or two before comments and posts start bringing conversations.

LinkedIn is one channel among a few. For how it fits beside referrals, outbound and partners, B2B lead generation covers choosing and counting your channels, and outbound sales strategy covers the calls that follow.

1. Rewrite your headline and about section for your buyer.
2. List 30 buyers you'd like to talk to this quarter.
3. Connect with 10 this week, with a note.
4. Comment usefully on their posts twice before you message anyone.
5. Write one post about a problem your buyers have.
6. Count calls booked from LinkedIn every Friday.

• LinkedIn Sales Solutions, From SSI to AI: what's next for the Social Selling Index, read 28 September 2026