If you receive a high amount of email from people outside your contact list, managing your inbox can be an overwhelming and time consuming task. In many cases, you may need to look for the profile of the unknown sender on the internet, which can take some time. Gmail users who deal with this in a regular basis are likely to be familiar with Rapportive, a social CRM widget that performed the search for you. What made Rapportive very convenient was the fact that it checked for people and displayed their profiles from multiple networks. You could see them as sidebar widget on Gmail.
Given the convenience of Rapportive, it wasn’t surprising that LinkedIn rushed to acquired this startup. In 2014, Rapportive was revamped and it doesn’t work in the same way as it once did. While it still offers browser add-ons and it supports Gmail extensions, it is simply not the same and many users were left disappointed by the changes. LinkedIn took over the tool and modified it to ensure that it adjusted better to its own requirements. Since then, Rapportive doesn’t support the features that allowed it to add additional details to the application in order to get data from a wider variety of sources including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Klout and GitHub. While Rapportive is still available, its functionality is now very limited, which is why you may want to consider the below alternatives.
FullContact for Gmail
This fantastic Chrome extension is designed to make your emails more efficient. With FullContact, you can find the social profiles of a contact from your Gmail inbox and you can connect with your contacts easily. It enables you to check their posts on Facebook, tweets, their photos and more, from within your Gmail inbox. FullContact is a very powerful solution and it is a great solution since it offers the same functionality that Rapportive originally supported.
The Notes section allows you to add information about the users and it also gives you the possibility of syncing contacts across your mobile devices using Google contacts. If you receive a contact from someone in an organization, the plugin aggregates data about the businesses and notifies you about important details including location, size of the company and demographics. The plugin has become very popular in the Chrome Store and it will be a good option if you want an alternative to Rapportive. Just keep in mind that it only works with Google Chrome and Gmail.
Sidekick
Sidekick was created by HubSpot and it is set to provide a simple solution to find out more about the person that is sending you a message, through their social media profiles. Once the extension is installed in Chrome, it lets you track the emails sent and it handles information like the last time your Emails were checked and how many times. You can also use this browser extension to schedule emails. In addition, it lets you track the activity of a user on their social profiles from within your inbox. Just keep in mind that you need to create a Sidekick account. It also supports SalesForce, Apple Mail and more.
Falcon
Falcon is another practical tool that allows you to find out more about contacts. Although it is fairly simple, it provides a good selection of basic features that will help you to check information from social media profiles. It gathers data from multiple sources including Twitter, Quora, Hackernews and Behance. With Falcon, you can look for any person and you can access the information through your browser or outside it. It appears as a sidebar window that displays all the data gathered by Falcon. It is easy to use and there is no need to create an account.
Discover.ly
Discover.ly combines all social media platforms to bring you comprehensive information about those who contact you. You can check their Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles with the help of this Chrome extension. It is also possible to get data from other networks such as mutual friends and to check the contact’s recent tweets. Discover.ly supports Hubspot, Buffer, Boomerang, as well as Rapportive.
Strike
Strike is an email tracking, Salesforce focused solution that allows you to run Business apps from within emails. It is particularly useful for Sales environments as it helps to keep track of contacts and email interactions. You can schedule emails to be sent at a later stage and it is also possible to set automated follow-ups and to manage Salesforce. You can send tracked emails to different recipients and find out when and how your emails are being read, since the tool sends you instant notifications. Emails can be sent at a specified date and you can also use the admin dashboard to manage team activity. The Salesforce connect feature lets you keep track of pre-filled leads and you can create and see Tasks with just a few clicks.
