Utilize LinkedIn with Salesforce CRM
LinkedIn is the largest business-oriented social networking website with millions of members and growing rapidly. Just as popular, Salesforce.com continues to lead the way in the CRM industry. Being able to tie your Salesforce Contacts to that person’s LinkedIn profile is a valuable resource in learning more about customers, prospects, and other business related contacts.
When searching Salesforce’s AppExchange for apps related to ‘linkedin’, about a dozen are tied to LinkedIn in some way or another. A highly reviewed and free app that Collabrax chose was in|force Connector by Redkite. With this app you can view your contact’s LinkedIn profile directly within Salesforce Contact pages.
LinkedIn Profile in Salesforce Contacts
Installation of the in|force Connector only takes about 5-10 minutes and then you can be on your way to connecting LinkedIn profiles to Salesforce Contacts.
There are four primary steps:
Step 1 – Install App
Clicking Get It Now from the AppExchange listing begins the installation process into your instance of Salesforce. Follow the steps as defined in the deployment guide.
Step 2 – Get LinkedIn API Key
Because LinkedIn has limits on the number of times per day an application can make calls to its API — and this is controlled by the API key — each organization installing the in|force Connector must have its own API key. Go to www.linkedin.com/secure/developer to get your key. Again this is nicely described in the deployment guide.
Step 3 – Configure Connector
Once you have acquire the API key, switch to the in|force Connector App in Salesforce where you will be asked to enter the key. You will need the API Key and Secret Key. Enter those values then click save.
Step 4 – Add Connector to the Contact Layout Page
From the Salesforce Contact layout configuration page click on Visualforce Pages and you should see a new LinkedIn Profile widget. Start by dragging a new Section to the page, naming it LinkedIn Profile, as a container to hold the profile. Then drag the new LinkedIn Profile widget to your new Section and save the page layout.
Contact by contact, you are now ready to connect LinkedIn profiles to your Salesforce Contacts,
For questions about this process and any other Salesforce capabilities, contact Collabrax today.
Tags: linkedin, Salesforce.com
14.May.11 
CRM, LinkedIn, Salesforce.com 
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