Social Media for Microsoft Dynamics Partners
A DynamicAccounting.net Best Practice Guide
Mark Polino and Jon Rivers
Published by Mark D. Polino, CPA and Jon Rivers at Smashwords
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Copyright © 2011 by Mark D. Polino, CPA & Jon Rivers
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Table of Contents
Social media is real and it’s going to impact your Microsoft Dynamics business whether you like it or not. Even if you aren’t participating in social media, millions of others are and many of them are talking about your company. The fact that you’re reading this book tells us that you at least suspect that social media can have a significant impact on your business.
There are a number of great resources out there that cover how to get the most out of social media for your business and we reference some of them at the end. However, very few resources are specifically geared toward Microsoft Dynamics Partners and all of those were written by Microsoft.
Both of us are successful participants in social media within the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem. We are also enthusiastic supporters of the power of connections. Our goal with this book is to share what we’ve learned and to help you, and other Dynamics partners like you, use social media successfully to improve your business.
You’ve probably got an idea of what social media means to you but we thought that we would define it so that we can all work from a common framework.
Short Definition: Social Media is any tool or service that uses the Internet to facilitate conversations. - Brian Solis
That’s a start but it’s pretty broad. So we wanted to give you the longer version too.
Long Definition: Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast medium, one-to-many, to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers. - Brian Solis
That’s a little better. We think that for Microsoft Dynamics partners, social media is about connecting with current and prospective users of Microsoft’s Dynamics products.
Sometimes users simply want to consume, they want to find a solution to their problem on a blog or video and get back to work. Sometimes they want to interact, ask questions and get answers. Often they want to explore and learn without heavy sales pressure. Finally, everyone seems to be looking for an expert.
Our goal is help partners like you cut through the clutter of what’s important and what you can safely ignore, at least for now.
Today, most of the social media content in the Dynamics space is written. Information comes in the form of blogs, tweets, newsletters, you get the idea. However, more and more content is also being produced as video. In this book we lean toward writing or “posting” but all the same principles apply to video, even if we don’t always state that explicitly.
There are really only two strategies for approaching social media from a partner perspective, they are Sell and Share. While the two aren’t mutually exclusive, most companies tend toward one strategy or the other.
Sell
In a pure Sell strategy, social media is essentially used as an extension of your marketing department. Blog posts, Twitter updates and other connections are focused on moving product. There is a risk that a sales only strategy can alienate both existing and potential customers making it counterproductive. If you decide to pursue a pure Sell strategy, we have a couple of recommendations:
-Focus on sites that are geared toward sales. For example, www.erpsoftwareblog.com has a mix of content but is definitely more sales oriented than other sites.
-Consider posts like “10 signs that you’ve outgrown your existing ERP solution” as a softer lead instead of pure press release type posts.
-Treat social media posting as a campaign within your larger marketing strategy. Campaigns need breaks to evaluate the results and let the market recharge.
-Sell something else. Rather than pushing your product, push an onsite evaluation. Push an informational webinar or an onsite event.
Share
In a Share strategy, the focus is not primarily on selling. Selling is often a by-product but it’s not the central theme. The idea behind a share strategy is to provide information that helps establish your firm as a leader in the field. Then when it’s time to buy, you show up at the top of the list of options. Admittedly it can be very tough to tie a share strategy to particular sale and it’s a long lead time between sharing and selling.
For example, at I.B.I.S., where Mark is a Principal Consultant, he got a call from the COO saying that the sales folks hear his name enough that they know that they are closing business because of it, even if they can’t make a direct connection. Mark is still waiting for his commission check, but he is not worried about running out of consulting work. He does occasionally get direct queries that lead to immediate work like one that came in while working on this book.