Social Media Get Ever More Attention from Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce.com

Users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM can expect an expanding push by the CRM team into the arena of social media like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Microsoft released its first effort, an accelerator that searches Twitter for posts that help companies learn what customers think of them, last October, to lukewarm reviews, based on bugs in the release. Said one reviewer: "With a minor fix of one of the entities, this installed and ran to perfection. It is obviously not very extensive, but works as advertised."

On its accelerator download site, Microsoft says, "This first release of the accelerator delivers integration with Twitter; other networks will be introduced in future releases."

But a new post on the Dynamics CRM team blog about the many benefits of social networking suggests additional accelerators and tools are in the works. It talks of "a new conversational market where all aspects of commercial offerings are discussed with or without the involvement of the service provider...It's all out there but requires effort to sift through, manage and interact with. CRM needs to be able to tap this almost limitless supply of information, present it to CRM users in a palatable format and allow them to interact with it.

Tugging at Microsoft as well is an extensive push on the part of Salesforce.com, which has just introduced on a limited basis a CRM social networking tool known as "Chatter". Part of Chatter's capability includes monitoring various social networking sites for marketing and sales purposes. ...