One of the greatest business assets that the internet offers is the ability to make business connections around the world, as well as keep in constant and convenient communication via email. However, without a face-to-face interaction, what is said via email can sometimes be lost in translation and impede on building rapport that is key in cementing business deals and industry contacts. Rapportive, by Y Combinator startup, is a great email add-on that adds a personal inflection to email correspondences that enhances rapport-building with email contacts. Currently only for Gmail senders and receivers, Rapportive includes online social information about its sender.
Rapportive can be installed for Gmail on Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. Once installed, the right side bar of Gmail (typically occupied by Google ads) offers a quick glimpse of the sender’s social media footprints and a convenient toolbar to quickly and conveniently interact with the sender on popular social media platforms. Here’s what the Rapportive profile might looking like (depending on how the user customizes its profile):
A Rapportive profile is entirely customizable by its user. This could include a photo, summary of professional experience, links to various social networking sites such as LinkedIn, and even integration of recent tweets.
Integration with Facebook
Last Wednesday, Rapportive announced that in its next update, Rapportive will include greater integration with Facebook. Rapportive users can include greater accessibility to their Facebook profiles so that their email recipients won’t have to leave their inbox to interact with them on Facebook. Greater Facebook integration also addresses the obstacle of Facebook’s news feeds that publishes what it deems as popular based on its algorithms, and not necessarily the recent updates of the person you’re corresponding with; Rapportive publishes your recent Facebook updates with your Rapportive profile. And as the largest social networking site (and imagine the potential of networking with Facebook’s over 600 million users), it would make sense to include greater integration with Facebook.
Check out this video by Rapportive:
Written By: Jaszver Bauzon