LinkedIn has announced some new feature updates for their Sales Navigator mobile app, while they’re also rolling out an enhanced integration for Microsoft Outlook, both of which will help streamline the connection process.
First up, on Sales Navigator – LinkedIn’s adding a new ‘Morning Briefings’ option which will provide context around who you’re meeting with that day.
As explained by LinkedIn:
“By syncing Sales Navigator up with your calendar, you can automatically receive important details around upcoming meetings. The app will provide insights about participants from their LinkedIn profiles and Company Pages, so you can come equipped with icebreakers and talking points without needing to search around. Meetings will conveniently be listed out in chronological order.”
LinkedIn’s been working to add in more tools like this which help provide prompts and insights on your connections. Late last year, the platform rolled out ‘Conversation Starters’, which provides ideas on what to talk to people about in your messages, based on LinkedIn data.
Morning Briefings follows a similar line, making it easier to find relevant talking points ahead of scheduled events.
LinkedIn’s also re-arranging the presentation of the alerts and notifications in Sales Navigator to ensure you’re made aware of the most relevant, recent developments.
“For instance, if one of the prospects you’re tracking changes jobs, or a Saved Lead views your profile, it will appear at the top of your feed so you can jump on opportunities without delay.”
LinkedIn notes that users will still be able to access all their regular Sales Navigator updates and intent signals – this new process will simply help to raise awareness of relevant updates, to enable faster action.
The tools are another example of LinkedIn making more use of its various data insights to better enable connection, which is a key area in which LinkedIn can provide significant benefit.
On another front, LinkedIn’s also announced an enhanced integration with Outlook.com, owned by parent company Microsoft, which will enable Outlook users to easily access LinkedIn profile insights for e-mail connections within their inbox, and within one click.
Microsoft has been slowly integrating LinkedIn’s data and functionality into its various tools, and the merging of LinkedIn data with Outlook makes a lot of sense.
Many people already utilize similar functionality via the Rapportive extension for Gmail, but the new integration will provide improved connection between the two products, with more data insights immediately available.
One interesting point of note could be how this process affects your LinkedIn profile views stats, and how that could impact future outreach.
Microsoft will continue to further integrate LinkedIn data and insights into the professional offerings, which, over time, could give them a big advantage. LinkedIn’s professional database is unmatched, and many enterprise organizations now rely on LinkedIn insights to streamline their process. As Microsoft finds new, improved ways to do this, it could significantly boost their offerings over rivals in the sector.