Memo to Eric Ligman: Seeking Microsoft Social Media Advice
Dear Eric: The VAR Guy is feeling a little overwhelmed and he needs your help. As director of partner experience at Microsoft (MSFT), you’re connecting the dots between Microsoft’s partners and various social media outlets. You’re also working to increase Microsoft partner satisfaction. But could you offer a little bit of help to an anonymous blogger (yours truly)?
Here’s the request: Of all the Microsoft social media accounts — blogs, FaceBook pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn accounts and so on — which four or five or so are the most important for partners to track? Got recommendations?
Of course, the Good Old Days — when Waggener Edstrom faxed across the latest Windows NT 3.1 press releases — are long gone. And print magazines like Windows IT Pro have shifted completely to digital and Web formats. The wheels of progress continue to move forward. (Cue the thunderous applause.)
Follow Here, Look There: Running In Circles?
But on the social media front, The VAR Guy sometimes feels as if there are too many Microsoft wheels in motion — to0 many blogs to read, too many Tweets to track. So which of Microsoft’s social media wheels — again the top four or five news feeds designed for partners — should The VAR Guy track?
Certainly regular updates on Office 365 and Windows Azure are requirements. And The VAR Guy continues to track Lync, SharePoint, Exchange and Dynamics CRM.
But there’s a lot of noise that The VAR Guy doesn’t necessarily want to hear. XBox updates? No thanks. Another Bing! market share press release? Not necessarily.
You Advice (Pretty Please?)
Stick with the business news for channel partners, and The VAR Guy will remain engaged. But there’s that lingering challenge: Which four or five social media accounts from Microsoft should The VAR Guy really watch?
Our resident blogger anxiously awaits your answers. Until then, The VAR Guy mostly tracks Microsoft partner news and chatter using Google Alerts. Surely, you’d like that to change — no?
Thanks for your ear. And for your potential social media guidance. The VAR Guy looks forward to shaking hands at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2012 in July.
Sincerely,
The VAR Guy
Thanks for reaching out with this inquiry. I’ve put together a quick list of suggested social media connection points for you and posted them on my blog:
“Help! What/where are the key Microsoft Microsoft Partner social media connection points?” http://ligman.me/GWoXz7
I hope you find them useful, and please let me know if you have any further inquiries or feedback. Hopefully I’ll see you at WPC 2012. Would be great to have you included as one of the “Fantastic people of WPC” I get to connect with: http://ligman.me/ouKTpx
Thank you and have a wonderful day,
Eric Ligman
Director, Worldwide Partner Experience
Microsoft Corporation
Something I certainly deem antisocial are the pop-up ads. It instantly makes me move on to someplace else.
So:
I’ll skip the TVG blog for a while.
Jack,
The VAR Guy will keep your constructive criticism in mind. Hoping a single pop-up doesn’t cause you to lose faith in our daily content.
-TVG
@TVG: The content is doing just fine, but there are typically 2 things on the web that makes me abandon services:
– Popups/sound ads (Can’t stand them).
– Music streaming services that shares info with Facebook.
As soon as Spotify (which in every other aspect suited me very very well) teamed up with Facebook, I cancelled my acct. I didn’t even let my premium acct expire.
I have abandoned every site I’ve ever used as soon as they introduce “entry popups”.
Out of courtesy, I will check whether the TVG blog owners decides to continue with these popups – meanwhile I wish you all sorts of success :o)
[email protected]: The VAR Guy thanks you for the MSFT social media guidance. Our resident blogger is checking out all those resources.
[email protected]: Thanks for coming back and sharing your views. Yes, the pop-ups continue. Our webcast attendees do you use them. But we hope you and other folks who aren’t interested in webcasts can click the X and close the popup super-fast without any hassle.
-TVG