Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.7: YouTube listening, engagement

Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.7 is ready and will be released in August 2017.

Front and center is listening and engagement on YouTube.

There is, of course, a ton of triviality on YouTube. Also, a lot of real business utility, like product demos and roadmaps. There are also 615 videos on the official Microsoft YouTube channel with nearly a half-million subscribers. MSDW's channel has over 400 videos.

For consumer brands, there is real customer engagement. Beauty retailer Sephora (showcased at Inspire 2017 as a digital leader), for example, has 2,119 videos and about 850,000 subscribers. The recent video "How To: Customize Your Foundation" has invited nearly 9,000 views and 400 "Likes."

With Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.7, users with at least a Responder interaction role can now rate and reply to videos and comments on YouTube. Those users will need a social profile for YouTube (under Settings > Social Profiles), or have a YouTube profile shared with them before interacting.

Further, Social Engagement has extended its listening capabilities. It can now acquire video posts and comments on YouTube channels. Users with permission to create search rules can now create YouTube rules under any search topic; also, can add YouTube channels from which to gather posts and comments.

Finally, keyword-based searches on a video source continue to reside under the keywords rule, but now also include comments for actively-discussed video posts.

If the excitement has quieted some since Microsoft