How to record likes on LinkedIn posts in the contact record?

[Sholtomac]

TLDR, if we want to record a like or comment in a contact record in HubSpot CRM, what's the best way to do it? We have an Excel of FNAME, LNAME, LinkedIn URL, title, Company name, comment/like that we want to import. Do you think the comment/like field should be a note in the contact record? The use case - the sales team can filter by activity, which would include any recent likes or comments on our LinkedIn posts, so we know who to call first.

Background: 

A like or comment on a LinkedIn post is a significant signal for us as we are chasing a small number of high value clients. If any of our target personas likes a post then we want to capture that in the CRM so our sales team know who to call first. 

I've also gone through LinkedIn Sales Navigator (LSN) and it looks like the post data (likes, comments) is on a separate database to LinkedIn profile data. This is an assumption given that you can't use LSN to view everyone who liked or commented on a post within a set timeframe. This would be an obvious list to build, if it were possible.

We are using a VA to manually collect this data in Excel and want to work out how to import into HubSpot. Also thinking that Airtable may be a more accurate way to do it, for obvious database benefits (multiple people to a post, etc.).

@karstenkoehler, any ideas?

[KPoth]

@Sholtomac - With Kavo.ai, we can automate this process for you. Additionally, we can identify any new contacts who liked your post but aren’t yet in your CRM. If they align with your ICP, you can route them to your team. Let me know if you'd like to learn more.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Sholtomac,

I would import LinkedIn interactions as notes. While it's not perfect, I think it's the most suitable existing activity type that offers the highest level of flexibility for this purpose.

A few thoughts about adding likes/comments within notes:

• Your Excel file doesn't seem to include an email address of the contact. You need an email address in that file for HubSpot to add this note to the right contact record. One way to do so would be via VLOOKUP (export your contacts, then VLOOKUP the email address of the contact based on the first name + last name or based on the LinkedIn URL). Without an email address, HubSpot will simply create new contact records and not update existing ones with the note.
• Please refer to these sample files for the correct setup of a multiple object (contact + note) import. https://knowledge.hubspot.com/import-and-export/set-up-your-import-file#multiple-objects-with-associ...
• I'd recommend starting the 'Note body' with something standardized, such as 'LinkedIn interaction'. This will help you either exclude or include notes with those keywords in reports, workflows, lists.
• Your Excel seems to be missing an interaction date. I would strongly recommend including the date of the interaction or at least the date of when the post was made – otherwise these notes will not appear chronologically in the contact timeline.
• Going forward, you might want to consider having the VA add the information right to HubSpot, with limited permissions of course. Using a snippet, they could add the notes directly, saving you the hassle of the steps above.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

[Sholtomac]

Thanks Karsten - excellent advice. I like the idea of adding it directly to HubSpot. Unfortunately the sales team are on Salesforce (for the moment!) so entering into Excel and then uploading to both CRMs (marketing and sales respectively) is the most practicable for right now. 

It's a shame that HubSpot doesn't have some type of Other interaction field we can use other than notes... Hopefully in a future release.

Thanks again for your generous help.

-- Sholto