The short answer
Social selling is using your own LinkedIn presence to be known by buyers before you ask them for a meeting. It runs in four steps: a profile that tells a buyer in seconds who you help, posts and comments that show you understand their problem, engagement with the people in an account before any pitch, and then a short connection request or InMail with a concrete reason to talk. Every Sales Navigator plan gives 50 InMail credits a month, Premium Business gives 15, and free accounts can add a personal note to only three connection requests a month. LinkedIn's Social Selling Index scores four of those habits from 0 to 100, but LinkedIn itself now says the score no longer reflects how selling works. Automation tools that send invitations or messages for you break LinkedIn's user agreement.
Limits, rules and definitions below come from LinkedIn's own help centre, user agreement and Sales Navigator pages, read on 1 October 2026.
What social selling is, and where it fits in the Benelux
Social selling is the slow part of prospecting done in public: being visible and useful to a small group of buyers, so that your name is not new when you reach out. It works at the level of people, not companies. That matters in Belgium, where most companies have no LinkedIn company page at all; three in four Belgian companies with a website have no LinkedIn page. Their managing director may still have a personal profile. So build the account list somewhere else, then use LinkedIn to get to know the people at those accounts.
Step 1: a profile a buyer can read in ten seconds
Before a buyer accepts your request, they open your profile. Make it answer three questions without scrolling.
Headline: who you help with what. "I help Flemish wholesalers cut picking errors" says more than "Account Executive at X".
About: the problem, not the product. The situations you see at customers, how you work, how to reach you.
Proof. A featured post, a published customer case or a talk. Nothing a buyer cannot check.
Language. Write in the language your buyers read. A seller covering Flanders and the Netherlands writes in Dutch; one covering Brussels and Wallonia may need French as well.
Step 2: content that shows you know their problem
You do not need to become a creator. One useful post a week and a few thoughtful comments a day are enough to be recognisable to the 50 to 100 people you actually sell to. Good material comes from your own work: a question three customers asked this month, a rule change your buyers face. Comments on your buyers' posts often do more than your own posts, because they land in front of the person you want to reach. Keep pitches out of both.
Step 3: engage before you reach out
Pick the accounts first, then the people. In a B2B purchase several people decide, so map the decision-making unit at each account: the user, the budget holder, the person who signs. Then, for two or three weeks before any message, follow them, read what they post, react where you have something to add, and check whether a colleague already knows them. Sales Navigator's TeamLink, alerts and lead lists help here; what they do and cost is covered in our Sales Navigator guide for Belgium.
Step 4: connection requests and InMail
There are two ways to write to someone you are not connected with. They have different limits.
Connection request with a note | InMail | |
|---|---|---|
Who can send it | Every member | Paid subscriptions only |
Monthly allowance | Free accounts: a personal note on 3 requests a month. Premium: notes on every request | Sales Navigator Core, Advanced and Advanced Plus: 50 credits a month each. Premium Business: 15 |
Length | 200 characters per note (free accounts) | Subject up to 200 characters, body up to 2,000 |
Other limits | A weekly invitation limit applies to all members, free and Premium; LinkedIn does not publish the number | Unused Sales Navigator credits carry over up to 150; a credit comes back when the recipient replies within 90 days |
Source: LinkedIn help centre pages on personalised invitations, invitation limits and InMail credits, read on 1 October 2026. LinkedIn restricts invitations when you send many in a short time or when many are ignored, left pending or marked as spam; most restrictions lift within a week, and withdrawing an invitation stops you from inviting the same person again for up to three weeks. So send fewer, better requests.
A connection note has room for one reason and nothing else. For example: "Saw your post on the new warehouse in Genk. We work with two logistics firms in Limburg on the same move. Happy to connect." No link, no meeting request. Use InMail when there is no shared context yet but a strong reason: a new role, a published expansion. Write it like a short email to one person, ending with a question they can answer in one line.
The Social Selling Index: what it measures
The Social Selling Index (SSI) is LinkedIn's score from 0 to 100 for how you use LinkedIn to sell. LinkedIn describes four elements, each worth up to 25 points:
Establishing a professional brand with a complete, well-built profile.
Finding the right prospects.
Engaging with insights, by sharing relevant, useful content.
Building and strengthening relationships.
You see your score when signed in at linkedin.com/sales/ssi. Read it as a checklist for the four steps above, not as a target. LinkedIn's own SSI page is now titled "From SSI to AI" and says the score no longer accurately reflects the modern sales environment. Measure what social selling produces instead: accepted requests from the right people, replies and meetings held. The metrics that matter for a prospecting role are in what an SDR does and how the role is measured.
What not to do
Automation tools. Section 8.2 of LinkedIn's user agreement (effective 3 November 2025) forbids you to "use bots or other unauthorized automated methods" to add contacts, send messages, or like, comment on or share posts. The same section bans software, scripts and browser extensions that scrape profiles. LinkedIn's help page on prohibited software says members who use such tools risk having their accounts restricted or shut down.
Bought or automated engagement. The same clause covers automated likes, comments and shares that "drive inauthentic engagement".
Pitching in the connection note. Ignored invitations are one of the triggers LinkedIn names for restrictions.
Copying contact details out of LinkedIn. Besides the scraping ban, the data you take is personal data under the GDPR. Whether a LinkedIn message counts as electronic marketing under Belgian or Dutch law is unsettled; the cold outreach rules for Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany set out what is clear and what is not.
How social selling combines with email and phone
LinkedIn rarely books a meeting alone; it makes the email and the call warmer. A working rhythm for one account looks like this: follow and engage with two or three people for a couple of weeks, send a connection request with a reason, then an email that refers to something concrete, and a call a few days later. If you get no answer, each next touch needs a new reason, which is the rule in our guide to B2B follow-up emails. The best moment to restart is a change at the account, such as a new decision-maker in the first months of a role; the buying signals worth acting on lists the others.
The hard part is knowing who to follow and when something changed. In Bizzy, you start from Belgian companies drawn from the KBO register, then open the contacts at each one, filtered by department and seniority, with email, phone and LinkedIn profile per contact where available. Job change signals, sourced from LinkedIn, show the old and new title and the date, so a new finance director at an account you follow becomes a reason to write that week, not something you notice six months later.
Frequently asked questions
What is social selling? Using your LinkedIn profile, posts and engagement to become familiar to specific buyers before you contact them.
How many InMails do you get with Sales Navigator? 50 InMail credits a month on every Sales Navigator plan: Core, Advanced and Advanced Plus. Unused credits carry over up to 150. Premium Business includes 15 a month.
What is a good Social Selling Index score? LinkedIn does not set one. The score runs from 0 to 100 across four elements of up to 25 points each, and LinkedIn now says it no longer accurately reflects the modern sales environment. Track replies and meetings instead.
Is LinkedIn automation allowed? No. LinkedIn's user agreement forbids bots and unauthorised automated methods for adding contacts, sending messages or engaging with posts, and accounts using such tools risk restriction or closure.
Photo: the Place d'Armes and the belfry in Namur, NEW - Namur, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons