Salesforce LinkedIn Integration – The Ultimate Guide

In 2021, there will hardly be any individual or business who is unaware of the professional networking platform of LinkedIn. Millions of users, irrespective of the industry they belong to and the scale of their businesses use LinkedIn to get in touch with like minded professionals and build their professional network, LinkedIn helps us to build Public Relations and personal branding.

However, LinkedIn can be integrated with Salesforce to extend the functionalities of both platforms. With the LinkedIn Salesforce integration, a networking platform joins hands with a CRM platform to provide a seamless and efficient experience to your sales reps.

Before getting into the details of the integration, let us briefly understand the two platforms coming together – LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Salesforce.

What Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the version of LinkedIn dedicated specifically to drive sales processes. It allows the users to scout the platform for finding the right leads in the form of individual professionals or businesses, obtain key insights about the same, and approach them on a personalized basis for taking the deal forward.

The Sales Navigator can be called the lead management arm of LinkedIn. Its algorithm helps you look for potential customers based on your target audience and get valuable insights about the same. Also, the platform recommends leads that best suit your business and the ones that are likely to respond positively on being approached.

Staying true to the name, LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps you navigate among the leads generated for more organized and wholesome sales processes. The platform provides you with an array of features, including real-time sales updates, notes and tags, updates on who viewed your profile, smart link presentations, InMail messaging, and many more.

Also, Read:  How To Integrate Salesforce And SharePoint Online Through File Connect

What Is Salesforce?

Salesforce is almost as old as the history of CRM platforms. It is used by organizations across the world to manage their customer database and provide personalized services to their customers.

Salesforce, through its vast platform and a variety of tools, helps you in recording specific details about your clients/customers on a centralized platform and uses the same to tailor communication and services according to the specific needs and preferences of the customers.

From lead management and creating powerful campaigns to developing reports and carrying out third-party integrations, salesforce applications is equipped with loads of features that help you automate several business processes.

Salesforce LinkedIn Integration

The integration of Salesforce with LinkedIn equips LinkedIn Sales Navigator with CRM functionalities. It allows seamless integration of data between the two platforms, allowing the users on both ends to work on a centralized interface without having to switch platforms for carrying out different processes.

For LinkedIn users, the Salesforce LinkedIn integration allows them to store valuable data about the leads generated within a CRM database. They can record this information in specific Salesforce objects and use them to reach out to their prospects in the best way possible.

Recording LinkedIn leads in the automated pipeline of Salesforce allows users to score their leads better and nurture them until the deal is cracked and the same is made.

On the other hand, the Salesforce LinkedIn integration helps Salesforce users get a wider reach for finding suitable leads. Based on the specific needs of your business and the target audience you want to cater to, the functionalities of LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to find and capture leads to add to your Salesforce database for improved data management and better communication.

How To Integrate Salesforce With LinkedIn

Prerequisites for Salesforce LinkedIn integration

• You need to have the administrator rights before going ahead with the installation
• You need to have an active LinkedIn account. If you don’t have an account, it is advisable to create one for yourself or your business
• It is mandatory to purchase LinkedIn Sales Navigator or a higher plan to integrate it with Salesforce
• You will need a minimum version of Flash Player 9.0 installed on your IE 7 or above
• You need to have JavaScript enabled on your browser

Integration steps explained in brief

Carrying out the Salesforce LinkedIn integration is a pretty simple and straightforward task. Before we go into the details of integration, here are the steps involved, explained in brief:

1. Start by logging into your Salesforce account.
2. Go to AppExchange, move to Apps, and click on the Search option.
3. Search for “LinkedIn” and start downloading the LinkedIn package from the results.
4. Once the package is downloaded, start with the installation process. Based on your specific business requirements, select the customization option and security settings.
5. Confirm your installation.
6. Review the LinkedIn Company Insider Section. You can find this under the Account section on Salesforce.com, where you can explore all your account-related connections.

Salesforce LinkedIn integration in detail

Let us now understand the integration process in a little more detail.

You need to start the process by logging into your Salesforce account and searching for LinkedIn in AppExchange. You will then see the Salesforce and LinkedIn integration wizard.

Once you find the wizard, click on the link and select the option of “Get It Now” for installation the same with your Salesforce account. Your administration rights will allow you to install the LinkedIn package. All you need to do is make sure that you are logged in as an administrator only.

After clicking on the option of “Get It Now”, you will be asked to enter the credentials for your Salesforce production account and carry on with the installation process.

Now, you need to confirm the installation process by selecting the Installation option at the end. Here, you can select the Salesforce environment as well, making the decision of installing the program on a Sandbox or within the Production environment.

Also, you have the option of selecting the user for which you want to install the LinkedIn package.

After you have entered your credentials, you need to add the application to the tab of “Page Layout” by creating a new section for LinkedIn accounts. Now, select the option of Visual Force pages and add the section of LinkedIn Company Insider.

Now, go back to any specific Account record from your database and look for the section created by you. You will now find the option of adding your LinkedIn Sales Navigator credentials. You can configure your settings here and you should be good to go!

That is it! After you are done with the configuration, you can go ahead with using the integrated platform and leverage the productivity of your team.

In case you face any challenges on the way, you can always contact your Salesforce development company or Salesforce Consultant to help you out.

Options For Integrating Salesforce With LinkedIn

AppExchange

This is the most common route chosen by organizations for carrying out Salesforce LinkedIn integration. The AppExchange integration allows you and your team to have a seamless experience of using the functionalities of both the platforms logging Sales navigator activities directly to your Salesforce CRM.

These activities include:

• Logging in InMail messages and notes automatically in Salesforce

• Importing CRM records about Accounts and Contacts automatically from open opportunities in Salesforce to Sales Navigator. This will personalize your outreach during an active sales cycle

• Getting a CRM widget installed into Salesforce, allowing your sales reps to view LinkedIn related information in the records of Lead and Contact

• Native Integrations/APIs

• If you go ahead with syncing between Salesforce and LinkedIn Sales Navigator through native integration, it will automatically import all essential data relating to open opportunities from Salesforce to LinkedIn. This data includes:

• The Account and Contact records associated with any of your open opportunities, which are imported directly to the LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• All leads assigned to specific Salesforce users, which are imported directly into the Sales Navigator and mapped to the same user account directly

• Here, the Sales Navigator will surface “suggested leads” according to the information integrated with Salesforce CRM data and combined with the data science and algorithms of LinkedIn.

Third-Party Integrations

If you want to carry out the Salesforce LinkedIn integration using a third-party platform, Zapier is a highly powerful integration tool that will help you integrate almost any online service with another.

Zapier can be used for integrating multiple systems with the help of robust rules and filters. You can check out the LinkedIn to Salesforce integrations available for your company to go ahead with the collaboration.

The Final Word

Salesforce is a highly customizable platform that can be readily integrated with a range of other applications and services to provide the users with a unified and organized approach. The Salesforce LinkedIn integration is designed to help you drive more sales and manage your leads better.

When a professional social networking platform is integrated with a prominent CRM tool, it helps businesses in keeping a track of the customers they are catering to, the prospects they are targeting, and the opportunities that are most likely to give them positive results. It is definitely a win-win scenario for both LinkedIn and Salesforce users.