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Build Rapport over Facebook

We believe that companies will increasingly compete on treating people excellently.

How do you treat people excellently? You respond to people quickly. You help people feel like they belong. You personally connect with people: you care about who they are, what they think, and what they do.

The trend is most visible in customer support, but it will not stop there. It will affect sales, business development, and every other way in which companies communicate. As a result, more of us will spend significant amounts of time building rapport with people. Many of us already do.

How do we establish rapport in an increasingly online world? It's simple: we interact with people on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But if you're at all like me, you're too busy to go to multiple sites. This is why Rapportive brings your network into one place — your inbox.

Since our accidental launch, we've shown your contacts' recent tweets. With our LinkedIn integration, you can grow your network from Gmail. Today, we are excited to announce that we've integrated Facebook right into Rapportive.

You can add contacts as friends on Facebook. You can see their Facebook posts. You can see attached photos. You can 'like' and respond with comments. You can even watch attached videos. And you can do all of this without ever leaving Gmail.

Building rapport has never been this easy, or this much fun.

Enjoy!

Posted over 2 years ago

28 responses

Kris Aguero said
Love it!
Kris Aguero upvoted this
Gaurav said
Love the ending :D.
Michael Chunn said
Keep up the good work guys!
Jonathan Ellis said
How do I make rapportive shut up about linking facebook and continue showing me non-facebook data? I don't want rapportive seeing my facebook posts and I don't particularly want to see others'.
Rahul Vohra said
Jonathan, I'm sorry you had that experience — I know it's not for everybody. Please just hit "do it later" and it won't bother you again. We should probably have added "not for me" or something like that. We'll do this better next time.
Rahul Vohra said
Kris, Gaurav, Michael, thanks for your kind words! We'll rock on :D
Daya Sagar said
Awesome Dude. I've been looking for this integration of Gmail & FB.
Felipe Barros said
Fabulous! I couldn't imagine that an extension could be so stable and improve Gmail so much, but you guys rock! And this new step towards integration with FB is really welcome!
Tom Moncho said
Does this give Facebook any access to my Gmail contacts info.....or LinkedIn contacts info? I don't want to mix my business and personal contact info, so I don't want FB to have that. Do my security settings in Facebook apply? Some more privacy/security info pertinent to this would be helpful. Thank you.
Amanda im Netz said
My question is the same as the one by Tom Moncho. Does Rapprotive hand over any information from Gmail or LinkedIn to Facebook. In my Gmail addressbook there are several private phone numbers and email addresses people only share with friends. I don't want to be the one who let Facebook misuse this information!
Breakwhore said
I'm banned from Facebook on my gmail address for a reason I really thought was pretty silly and undeserved, they wouldn't let me appeal so I had to sign up with my hotmail address. You reckon this'll mean they'll work out who I am and ban me again?
Kvsimons said
Please be more clear about security - Facebook is a total whore with all information and everybody knows it. Am I now giving them a backdoor into my gmail contacts and email content? I think not. I want integration as much as the next person, but suddenly disabling your plug-in and advertising for facebook is not my idea of announcing a new option for me to consider. Yes, you should have put a "Not for Me" button as well as a link to read about privacy and security FAQ.
Rahul Vohra said
Tom, Amanda, Kvsimons, thank you for the feedback. Your trust is the most precious thing we have, and we will always protect that. That's why we don't just have a privacy policy, we have a Pledge of Privacy: http://rapportive.com/privacy

Please be assured that the integration does not give Facebook any direct access to your Gmail, Google Contacts, or LinkedIn contact information. The integration does search Facebook, as you, for the email addresses that you encounter. We know folks work in a wide range of circumstances, so we've worked hard to ensure that the integration is optional.

Tom, your security settings in Facebook do apply. Amanda, your phone numbers are entirely safe: it is not possible for Facebook to see them. Kvsimons, you aren't giving Facebook a backdoor into your email content. We've written more about connecting Rapportive to other services here: http://rapportive.com/privacy#authorizations

Tom Moncho said
Rahul,

Thank you for your reply. I think it's great that you are paying attention to user concerns and are responsive to them. 

The attached privacy info seems to address my concerns. I do think given the importance of the privacy issue it would benefit you to make this info more prominent, particularly when launching a feature like Facebook integration [especially given their history of privacy controversies]. Kvsimons suggestion of a privacy/security FAQ that's easily accessible is a good one. Knowing those policies, protecting personal data, and having options to control it, is of crucial importance. Thanks again.

Tom Moncho






Ken Simons said
Rahul,

Thank you for your prompt and polite reply. Though I am going to wait on the facebook integration, I really appreciate your commitment to security, privacy, and most of all, customer service. Keep up the good work.

Ken

engagedevents said
Rapportive may access my data when I'm not using the application
Miloš Leković said
Rapportive is great! I just don't know how to set up rapportive for my website's mail. I'm using gmail to receive and respond to mails people are sending me on my website's mail, and I want to create rapportive profile for it. Anyway, I hope that you will grow bigger, because I think you are really helping gmail. It makes gmail look like it's social network, not just mail service. Good luck, all the best!
Miloš Leković
Anthony Prestia said
I agree with some of the above sentiments. I'm glad to see continued development of Rapportive, but I am reluctant to give it access to my Facebook account. Rapportive is the only application I give access to my Google account, which says a lot about the quality of your product. However, I simply don't give any applications access to my Facebook data. I'd love a way to remove the "Sign in with Facebook" button at the bottom of Rapportive. It disrupts an otherwise clean interface.
Rahul Vohra said
Miloš, we'd love to help you fix the problem! Please drop us a note at supportive@rapportive.com and we'll see how we can help.

Anthony, I understand — we also want to keep the interface very clean. If you hit "do it later" it'll remove the button. You can always connect Facebook later if you change your mind, and there's plenty of non-Facebook functionality to look forward to in the pipeline!

Rahul Vohra said
engagedevents, unless we ask for that permission, you'd have to be logged into Facebook in another browser tab, and worse — keep signing in with Facebook from time to time. We decided to take the route which allows us to deliver the best user experience we possibly can. Please do see our Pledge of Privacy here: http://rapportive.com/privacy
peeja said
One more bit of Facebook paranoia. I assume other people can only see my FB posts if they can see them through Facebook itself. Is that correct?

In theory, since you've got access to my Facebook stream, you could share my posts with anyone looking at my profile. That's not what this feature does, correct?

Rapportive is *awesome*, and you guys have done a fantastic job all around. I trust you to be honest, but the definition of this feature has been a bit vague.

Rahul Vohra said
peeja, you're absolutely right: others can only see your Facebook content in Rapportive if they can see it on Facebook itself :)
Rob Pfeifer said
In the spirit of transparency, I think it would be great to put a post up of what exactly I'm sharing with facebook (and linkedin etc.). Having to go through the comments to get just an ok answer isn't ideal
Galen said
This doesn't work if you have facebook set to https only (I use Fidelio to do so). Would love it if you allowed it via https!
BobWeisberg said
Hi Rahul, How do I just get my old rapportive info (from correspondents) in my gmail account - all I get now is your FB info.
angelesia said
great job, rahul poke us in august, we will post another article on your service.
Rahul Vohra said
Galen, thanks for the heads-up — please can you send a quick note to supportive@rapportive.com? Thanks :)

Thanks angelesia!

Bob, this update will definitely not reduce the information you see in Rapportive. I'll follow up with you on twitter.