Microsoft is looking to transform its professional email client into a social networking tool with the recent addition of Outlook Social Connector.
An add-on that ships with Office 2010 and supports both Outlook 2003 and 2007, it integrates Microsofts email program with LinkedIn, the fast rising social networking site geared towards professionals.
The connector is already being hailed as a successful tool for small businesses as it provides instant access to one of the worlds fastest growing social networks while retaining the centrality Outlook is so well known for.
Boosting Productivity The Outlook Social Connector is the bridge that links the mail client to the social network.
It appears in Outlook as a horizontal pane by the name of the "People Pane".
The primary feature, it not only connects businesses to LinkedIn, but also acts as the centralized desk for all communications within Outlook.
Simply highlight an email, and by default, the People Pane will display a list of the recent communications between you and that particular contact.
This includes email messages, RSS feeds and the contacts status update on LinkedIn.
The social networking connection may be the main draw, but the People Pane offers so much more by allowing you to instantly view details about your communications, making it incredibly effective as a productivity booster.
Streamlining Communications The Outlook Social Connector would be a useful tool without LinkedIn integration, but its ability to retrieve data from the social network makes it even more valuable.
Included is a new Contacts folder that is made exclusive to your connections on LinkedIn.
In this folder, you can view a photo of each contact, in addition to other information pulled from their profile.
If you double-click on that contact, you can view the individuals latest communications and status updates.
In addition, you can visit the LinkedIn profile of any contact by simply clicking on the corresponding link in Outlook.
With the Outlook Social Connector, small businesses can save a lot of time by handling most of their social networking without ever leaving their email program.
Growing Social Connections The integration of Outlook and LinkedIn also makes it considerably easier for professionals to build their social network.
For example, you can get people to connect with you on LinkedIn by clicking the "Add" button and requesting that they join your network.
There is, however, a drawback to this feature.
At this point, the Outlook Social Connector does not perform a check to see whether a contact is a LinkedIn member.
This means that you could end up sending a request to people who are not signed up on the social network and have no intentions of doing so.
The positives of the Outlook-LinkedIn integration outweigh the negatives by far.
The add-on is free to use and offers a plethora of benefits to small businesses using social networking as a promotional vehicle.
As we mentioned, the connector is much more than a social tool because overall, it provides a more efficient way to manage email communications.