Set Up Permissions and Security Roles

Before you begin using social media features in Dynamics 365 Marketing, make sure the appropriate permissions are in place. Admin access is required to set up and authenticate social media accounts, but standard system users can create and schedule social media posts. System administrators can also customize users' security roles and permissions in the Power Platform admin center to control access to specific features and capabilities.

Connect and Authorize Your Social Media Accounts

The first step is connecting the social media accounts you want to manage. In Dynamics 365 Marketing, navigate to Settings and select Social media accounts under Customer Engagement. Select Create configuration to add an account. At the time of this Fast Class, Dynamics 365 Marketing supported connections to:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

You'll need access to the credentials for the social account so you can sign in and authorize Dynamics 365 Marketing to post through it. You can also give each connected account a descriptive name. This can be especially useful if you manage multiple accounts, work with several clients, or oversee multiple brands from the same Dynamics 365 environment. After choosing a channel, review and agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, create the configuration, and follow the onscreen instructions to sign in and authorize the account.

Manage Posts with the Social Content Calendar

Once your accounts are connected, navigate back to the Outbound Marketing area and open social posts. The default content calendar provides an overview of scheduled and published social media posts. You can switch between Day, Week, Month, and Year views, return to the current date, or review the day's agenda. You can also choose between calendar and list views. The calendar view is useful for seeing your overall publishing schedule, while the list view makes it easier to filter posts using information such as:

• Post name
• Social channel
• Post date
• User who created the post
• Publishing status and timing

Together, these views provide an easier way to understand and manage your social media activity from one location.

Create a Social Media Post

To create a post, select +New from the action bar. The social post designer includes a preview that shows what your content will look like on the selected platform. Configure the post by:

• Naming your post
• Selecting the social media channel
• Selecting the connected account
• Writing your message
• Adding media, such as an image

After selecting a channel, Dynamics 365 Marketing displays your character count and the maximum character count supported by that platform. Platform-specific requirements may also apply to your media. For example, at the time of this class, Dynamics 365 Marketing supported one image per Instagram post and provided image size recommendations to help ensure content was formatted correctly.

Save, Post Now, or Schedule for Later

Once your post has been drafted, you have several publishing options. You can:

• Save the post as a draft and return to it later.
• Publish it immediately.
• Schedule it for a specific date and time.

Scheduling makes it possible to prepare posts ahead of time while still publishing them at the exact times required by your campaign.

Batch Schedule Your Campaigns

If you already have an entire campaign planned, you can create and schedule multiple posts in advance. For example, you might publish an initial message announcing an upcoming sale, then schedule another post for the exact time the sale goes live. Batch scheduling lets you prepare the campaign ahead of time rather than manually publishing every post throughout the day or week.

Cross-Post Your Content

Dynamics 365 Marketing can also make it easier to use similar content across your different connected social media accounts. Cross-posting helps your content and messaging reach audiences across multiple channels with relatively little additional work. Instead of managing every platform independently, you can coordinate your social media activity from Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Review Social Media Analytics

Keep in mind that each social platform measures engagement differently. Likes, retweets, views, impressions, clicks, and other measurements can have different meanings depending on the platform, the audience, and your goals. For published posts, Dynamics 365 Marketing provides an Insights area where supported analytics can include:

• Likes
• Comments
• Clicks
• Impressions
• Click-through rate

At the time this Fast Class was recorded, built-in analytics were not available for Twitter posts.

Use Redirect URLs for Additional Tracking

Redirect URLs offer another way to track engagement with links included in your social media content. Under Internet Marketing, you can create unique, trackable links for content such as:

• Blog posts
• Shop items
• Articles
• Web pages

The resulting analytics can provide additional information, including the number of clicks, where clicks originated geographically, when interactions occurred, and the referring URL. The generated URLs can be long, so a URL-shortening service such as Bitly can make them easier to use. Some URL-shortening services also support custom slugs that can be branded for your organization.

Choose Compatible Images

For social posts created through Dynamics 365 Marketing, the class recommends using JPG or JPEG images because they provide the best compatibility. At the time of the recording, PNG images might not attach correctly to Twitter or Facebook posts when publishing through Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Simplify Social Media Management

Dynamics 365 Marketing's social media features can make it easier to manage your presence across multiple platforms without constantly switching between individual social media applications. By connecting your accounts in one place, you can batch schedule posts, publish content in advance, review your social content calendar, cross-post campaigns, and track engagement analytics. This creates a more centralized and efficient approach to managing your organization's social media marketing.