Leading social media management platform Hootsuite has announced a new integration with Microsoft's Dynamic CRM, SharePoint and Yammer. The deal will see these Microsoft properties made available within the Hootsuite platform, enabling better utilization of social content, with a particular focus on "social marketing, social selling, customer support and internal collaboration".
From Hootsuite's official announcement:
"The Hootsuite integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM will allow enterprises to integrate social interactions into the entire customer journey. From the Hootsuite dashboard, users can identify and create leads, opportunities, or cases and input them directly into Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Companies can also add social data to the customer record within Microsoft Dynamics CRM to provide a more holistic view of each customer."
The integration makes sense on both sides, with Hootsuite adding more tools to its ever-expanding suite of add-ons and features, and Microsoft gaining the social capacity of Hootsuite to widen the applicability of their offerings.
Hootsuite says that with the integration of SharePoint, enterprises will have more ways to utilize social media content across teams: "whether it's to resolve a customer issue or share important information".
"Any employee will be able to publish content found on their own social networks directly into their public and team SharePoint sites. Additionally, users will be able to bring content from SharePoint sites into the Hootsuite dashboard so that content can be viewed and actioned alongside social media data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks."
Meanwhile, through the integration with Yammer, employees will have more capacity to collaborate in real time as they're engaging with customers on social, thereby expanding the capabilities of customer social conversations and giving employees a more holistic view of their interactions across internal and external networks.
In discussing the integration, Steve Johnson, the Chief Revenue Officer at Hootsuite, said that the new partnership with Microsoft will extend the possibilities of integrated social and internal communications to achieve better customer outcomes.
"Integrating Microsoft software enables Hootsuite customers to get the most out of social, from external customer interactions to internal collaboration. We're pleased to expand our relationship with Microsoft to offer solutions that will empower our customers' success with social."
The new collaboration offers a range of opportunities for brands to better utilize Microsoft's leading software in collaboration with Hootsuite's leading social tools - a potentially powerful combination. Integration between Hootsuite and Microsoft Dynamics had previously been possible, in a makeshift capacity, through automation tools like Zapier, highlighting the demand for such a partnership. Yammer, also, has long been available in the Hootsuite app directory.
This new deal solidifies those partnerships and enhances the functionality of Microsoft's tools within the Hootsuite environment, boosting the capabilities of each.