Multiple Issues w/ LinkedIn Handle and Contact Photographs
After integrating my Zoho CRM account with my Zoho Campaigns, I found a number of issues with "LinkedIn" fields. I am hoping that it is an oversight or configurable option on my party, and not just broken. Any assistance, advice, recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
LinkedIn URL Overview
- LinkedIn as three types of URLs for people:
- Standard - /in/linkedin_handle
- Generic - /profile/view?id=[###############################]
- Public /pub/(?)
At any rate, the public ones will redirect to the standard links, but the generic ones will not. I suspect the generic URLs are a to protect the privacy of some account who you are not connected with.
My Implementation
- Zoho CRM Fields
- I added a "LinkedIn Handle" (Single Line) field in Zoho CRM to Leads and Contacts. This stores only the handle for a person in LinkedIn, as highlighted in blue in item 1 above.
- I added a "LinkedIn Profile" (URL) field in Zoho CRM as well that is used to store generic formatted URLs and company profiles.
- I then added a "Link" in Zoho CRM with this format: https://www.linkedin.com/in/${Leads.LinkedIn Handle}
- In Zoho Campaigns I linked the LinkedIn handle with the same field in Zoho CRM.
My Issues
- In Zoho CRM, the LinkedIn "Link" now appears on all lead and contact detail views ... even if the "LinkedIn Handle" Single Line field is blank for that record.
- Is there a way to only display a link if the field used in the link is populated?
- Zoho Campaigns synchronizes the LinkedIn Handle field correctly, but it's "link" implementation is outdated. Zoho Campaigns attempts to create the link as http://www.linkedin.com/ linkedin_handle while the correct link should be http://www.linkedin.com/in/ linkedin_handle (*note the "/in" before the handle).
- Is there a way to configure this in Zoho Campaigns?
- (Potentially unrelated) Zoho Campaigns is pulling in a few photos for some leads and contacts, but in our CRM implementation more than 90% of the records contain photos. I saw no place to synchronize the photos between the two systems, but it appears that Zoho Campaigns pulls in (or tries to) the LinkedIn profile pictures for some users - but only some.
- Is this a result of item 2 listed above?
- Is there a way to simply synchronize this with the photos in the CRM?
Alternative Option
I would prefer to identify a solution that properly uses the LinkedIn handles as I've defined them, and synchronize contact photographs with Zoho CRM. Alternatively, my solution would be to include the "in/" prefix in the LinkedIn handles, and modify the "Link" in Zoho CRM accordingly so that it mimics the (incorrect) behavior of Zoho Campaigns (in which case I can merge the LinkedIn Handle and LinkedIn Profile fields because they'll both just be appended to the base LinkedIn URL).
I think this is the wrong solution because it does not follow the proper LinkedIn profile URL structure, but it will work. Regarding the photographs, I feel I am just at a loss.
Any advice on how to correct is greatly appreciated.