Big Money for Social Media Platform
Don’t you love the name of Microsoft’s newest purchase; Yammer, a social media platform just for businesses? You can’t say the name isn’t catchy. Now businesses can Yammer all day long to get their social media on. All kidding aside, this just goes to show how important social media networking can be – Microsoft knows a deal when they see one. Paying $1.2 billion for a company that is similar to Facebook may seem somewhat strange but probably no stranger than when they purchased Skype.
Why Microsoft would purchase Yammer in the first place may be the question on a lot of people’s minds. It really makes sense when you look at the shift in technologies and at how many businesses are using social media networks as part of their tools for business purposes. Microsoft will offer business built-in company geared social media networks that allow them to connect anywhere anytime using, of course, Microsoft software products such as Office and SharePoint.
Yammer already reports 5 million uses and will continue to have a public social media network. Microsoft will support this as well as offering business products and tools that will work for the built-in versions. Of course there will be a charge for these services, but the cost savings that larger corporations will save by being able to network to get the jobs done will outweigh the cost.
When you look at travel expenditures, time lost, and all the things involved in trying to get everyone together quickly for business the benefits don’t look bad. There are other social media networking platforms such as Google + where businesses can meet and work together. These can and do work for some businesses, but Microsoft offers software business products that other social media networking sites don’t.
Realizing the importance and uses of social media platforms for networking and marketing is something that both small and big businesses have in common. All businesses are finding that there are benefits to using social media whether it is intranet or internet based or even a combination of the two in order to market and operate their business.
What may seem to some like too much to invest into a social media platform on Microsoft’s part through its purchase of Yammer is actually a really small amount compared to the benefits that they have a potential for reaping. To stay on top of their game this leap to social media platform (Yammer) for businesses will give them a leg up so that they can continue the production of business software as well.
Even though social media networking platforms have been around for awhile watching the big boys such as Microsoft, Google and others tap into them more and more demonstrates the importance of going forward with your social media efforts.