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Microsoft’s Facebook Strategy, What is in it for Social Media Marketers?

We all know the tremendous potential of traffic, brand promotion and customer interaction on facebook. And it is always good to explore new ways to benefit even more from this social media platform by studying and analyzing the tactics of big brands.

This article is a sequel of my articles aimed at analyzing Microsoft’s Social Media Strategy. Let’s learn how Microsoft leveraged the “real time coverage” of events on Facebook and used it for brand promotion and increasing fan base.

The First Step of Microsoft on Facebook:

Pages or Groups? --- is the first inevitable question for every organization starting on Facebook and Microsoft faced the same. The wining option however was that of “pages”, Microsoft spokesman elaborates the reason, in a white paper, as follows:

It became rapidly apparent that pages were the way to go because of their openness and “brandability.” Our aim was to utilize the page for posting photos, videos, news updates and blog posts, drip-feeding content into our fans’ news feeds.

In the start, until Microsoft has blended the social culture right into their organization, they were sharing content with their audience when they’re browsing during, say, their lunch break, giving them a little branding and interaction at the same time.

However, improved social media marketing set up allowed them to listen, collate feedback, track sentiment and react in a real-time way to their campaigns, whatever platform, screen or device it’s running on.

Microsoft becoming a leading example in Social Media:

Microsoft’s active participation in social media not only provided them with brand promotion but also provided them the opportunity to become a leading example in social media sphere.

Whereas before, we’d be asked to write, speak or comment on matters related to search engine marketing, we’re increasingly being called upon to attend conferences and events to talk about our experiences, but also to “broadcast” the event.

And the Microsoft Team approached the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival in the south of France, wanting to do something special. What they did at the festival and how they achieved great results can be best read in the own words of Microsoft Team:

“We decided to create a social media hub: a site where all our activities offline could be translated into an experience our audience online could join.

A robust “on-the-ground plan,” which outlined hour-by-hour which sessions we’d be blogging about or Tweeting from and detailed a film schedule of interviews with conference delegates and speakers, as well as our own executives, all helped to bring the event alive in real time for the thousands of interested advertisers, marketers and creatives who could not make the trip.

As the dust settled after a hectic week, we counted more than 40,000 interactions or “brand engagements” with our branded coverage. That’s people reading blog posts, watching videos, browsing photos or engaging with us on Twitter. By the next event, Advertising Week in New York a couple of months later, we’d analyzed the Cannes experience, working out we could have done better, and achieved a 50 per cent growth in interactions.

60,000 “brand engagements” with our content from Ad Week proved that event coverage using social media is welcomed as long as it’s relevant, and for the most part, actionable insight.”

What is in it for Social Media Marketers?

• Social Media is not meant to be used for one time or instant benefits. It has long term benefits attached and should be planned accordingly.
• Branding matters a lot! It does not matter whether you are a famous brand or not, but building all your content and focusing all your efforts around a personal or business brand is a better strategy.
• If you are team or company, then social media marketing should be built into organizations culture.
• Pages are better for building brand awareness and customer attraction, while groups are for private or closed discussions.
• Persistent effort is need to become a leader in your niche. It is not necessary that your first effort will bring you the most desirable results. You should be able to analyze your efforts closely, if they fail know the reason; if they succeed you should be able to reproduce consistent results.

So what is your social media strategy, how do you leverage the benefit of large user base of Facebook or similar sites? Share in comments.