LinkedIn Profiles in your CRM Cloud

Today started like every other day until I received an unexpected gift. It came in the form of a cloud service to integrate LinkedIn Profiles into my salesforce.com contacts. 

When reading my email today I received the AppExchange Digest, which is a regular update salesforce.com sends out to users to provide updates on new Apps. One of the small updates on the list was a hyperlink to the LinkedIn® Connector for Salesforce CRM from redkite. This looked interesting to me, so I read more about it. The basic idea is that when you pull up a contact in Salesforce CRM, you will also see the LinkedIn® Profile for the user.

I decided to install the software and followed the documentation from redkite, which basically involved:

1. Downloading the App into my salesforce.com instance
2. Registering for an API key in LinkedIn®
3. Entering the API key into my salesforce.com instance
4. Modifying the contact page layout in salesforce.com to move the new LinkedIn® display object into my standard contact page layout.

I completed the installation and setup in less time than it took me to drink a cup of coffee. The first time I used the newly saved contact screen it confirmed with me if it was okay to use my LinkedIn® account to access LinkedIn® Profiles. After this confirmation the LinkedIn® Profiles began to appear on the contact screen.

The integration works like a dream. It knows which contacts to which I am connected and those to whom I am not. If I want to view the contact's complete profile I simply click on the button which says "View Profile in LinkedIn". These has tremendous potential for those wanting instant access to more information about their buyer directly from within CRM. It is convenient and demonstrates excellent interoperability between cloud service providers. Here is what it looks like with the contact information from my account rep at salesforce.com.

It's easy to see how this will be a benefit for sales people in helping them to better understand the buyer - in one screen they can see key information from LinkedIn®:

1. Degree of Relationship Display 
2. Current and Previous Employers and Titles 
3. Summary Profile and Education 
4. View How You're Connected 
5. Seamless navigation to full LinkedIn® Profile 
6. Secure authentication directly to LinkedIn® 

This a super example of how applications working together in the cloud create tremendous value. If you use salesforce.com, have your administrator install this App today. If you are using another CRM system find out how to access it from your system. 

Sign up for our free newsletter!