Microsoft Office 2013 includes a social media tool, Social Connector, which brings social media directly to your Outlook inbox. While Social Connector is one of the main Office tools for managing social media interaction, Word and Excel can also play a role in your social media strategy.
Social Connector for MS Office 2013
For most business professionals using MS Outlook, enabling Social Connector is sufficient. This tool allows you to interact with your contacts via email (as usual), LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networks that you enable – all from within Outlook. Once configured, Social Connector will link your contacts' social profiles with your contact list in Outlook.You'll see their profile photos, status updates, news, conversations, email messages, meeting requests, and attachments in one handy location. In fact, even if you do not follow your contacts on social media profiles, you'll be able to see their publicly available information in your inbox.
Not only can you interact with your existing LinkedIn and Facebook contacts from within Outlook, you can build those networks by inviting your Outlook contacts to join you on your preferred networks – all with just a click or two of the mouse in Outlook. The days of switching back and forth between Outlook and multiple social media webpages are over.
Enabling Social Connector for Microsoft Office 2013
Social Connector is pre-loaded into Office 2013. To enable Social Connector, open Outlook and click on the File tab. You should land on the Info tab by default. If not, click it. From there, choose Account Settings > Social Network Accounts. Pick the social network you'd like to connect and then add your credentials. Do this for one or more social networks and begin interacting with your contacts from within Outlook.Using Excel 2013 and Data Explorer for Social Media Analysis
Earlier this year, Microsoft released an Excel add-in called Data Explorer. Among other things, this add-in allows you to get external data from various sources, one of which is Facebook. If you're tasked with managing your company's social media account, this plug-in could be incredibly useful. |
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For example, if you need a document listing all of your posts over a period of time, you can quickly import all of you posts into an Excel spreadsheet. Similarly, you could pull a feed of all comments added to your Facebook page.
Using MS Word's New Multimedia Tools for Creating Media Rich Blog Posts and Status Updates
Microsoft Word also has a new feature that's useful for social media managers. Its multimedia tools now integrate with your Flickr and Facebook accounts, allowing you to quickly insert images into your documents directly from your social albums.If you regularly blog for your company, other new multimedia functions in Word 2013, such as the ability to embed videos directly into your document, may make offline blogging from within Word a more robust choice. Social Connector is covered by most of Microsoft Office training.
While Social Connector for MS Office 2013 is the main Office tool used for managing social interactions, Excel and Word have new features you may find useful. If you're a traditional business user who interacts with others via social networks, enabling Social Connector allows you to interact directly from Outlook.
If you are actively involved in managing your company's social media accounts, you may want to explore Office's other social media tools in greater detail.
Danielle AllisonAbout the Author:
Danielle Allison is a social media manager at an insurance company. She blogs about technology, social media and online marketing.