Earlier this year, we established a presence on
Twitter and
Facebook. We knew that people were out there talking about us. We wanted to be there to participate in the conversation. Almost immediately, partners began relating to us in a whole new way. We got to know many of you better, too. Someone might announce a new solution. Or a competency attained. And we'd happily pass that on to our followers. We found out how passionate some of you truly are. We continue to learn from you every day.
Our online communities helped us organize
discussions about the 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC09). On the dedicated
WPC09 Facebook site, partners shared anticipatory comments and invited each other to visit conference booths. Partners are still tweeting about their experience and have even begun tweeting about WPC10, which is a year away! Nearly 1,500 photos were uploaded to
Flickr. The conference was a top-10 buzzing topic on Twitter, helping drive more than 150,000 viewers to the keynote addresses that were streaming live on
Digital WPC. (They can now be viewed
on demand.) And as the speakers presented, the tweets of the audience—physical and virtual—scrolled side by side with the streaming video. The sense of interaction and engagement was palpable.
So, in our experience, just joining the conversation can be meaningful. Where you go after that depends on your specific needs, the size of your business, and your goals. We've put together some resources you can use to build or deepen your own social media practice.
