Social Networking and Microsoft
Friday, October 2, 2009
I am still a few years short of the big 40, and still believe in learning new things and moving with the times. Hey I am blogging – that’s pretty cool!
I am on face book, which has connected me with some old friends that I did not know I wanted to keep in contact with (still not sure I do!). But I do certainly see its merits. On the flip side there is information that you may now want shared with the world, and Facebook can turn into an extension of the age old gossip lines.
For Example: A while back I purchased a 1/24th share in a 38foot cruising boat. (please note that is a tiny share of a reasonably expensive boat). I then took a couple of eOne developers out for a pleasant day on the boat catching fish. (I won’t mention who they were or which one threw up). A few months later I took a trip to the USA for work, and had both staff and customers say first up, “we really like your new boat”. I almost fell off my chair. One of the team had kindly posted photos of “Martin’s new boat’ on his face book page!.
Now there is nothing wrong with any of the above, except the people I work with on the other side of the world have built up a completely untrue belief that I had recently purchased a $450,000 boat!
Now to marketing and information sharing with these tools, facebook, myspace, twitter etc? I recently noticed Microsoft GP’s product team had created a face book page.
I am not sure I understand the thoughts behind it. There was a time when if I needed information about Dynamics GP I went to partner source? I always found what I needed. Now when I go to partner source it seems a bit hit and miss. There was also a clear distinction between what information was available to customers and what was available to partners. Now I can read multiple Microsoft sponsored GP Blogs, lots of other blogs (like this one) and now I can become a fan on face book. It seems to me that the information being distributed this way is all very much the same as what is on a website and in blogs.
I am all for more exposure for Dynamics products, and if this helps attract customers then I am very supportive. What I would like to see is differentiation in content across the media. There is no point have a blog that reflects everything on your website, or a face book page that simply lists the same stories that are in your blog.
I have also noticed there are a bunch of GP related videos and demo’s on You Tube. Do a search hand you will find them. I would be interested to learn if this has generated much success for those posting the videos.
I still believe at the corporate level, companies looking to spend big $ on an ERP/CRM solution will skip right over information presented through social media like facebook. (or at least I hope they do). I am happy to be proven wrong but for the time being I would be happy for Microsoft to put all their marketing effort into traditional messaging, training programs and product enhancements.
