Microsoft Corporation is a American technology company that develops, manufacturers, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and services. Microsoft focuses on the development and implementation of software used in computers and on the Internet, and also develops consumer electronics that include the software they have developed and created.
Microsoft Corporation’s headquarters is located in Redmond, Washington. The company was founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1975 where they developed and sold coding software for their microcomputers. Soon after, the company began to dominate the consumer and personal computer operating system marking with their graphical operating system, Microsoft Office.
Social Media Presence Overview
Microsoft Corporations social media platforms:
Analysis and Evaluation
Blog
Microsoft’s blog, which has a new post almost every week, if not every other week, consists of articles and blogs involving any sort of influence, or advocacy Microsoft has partaken in in society and in the technological world. The blog has articles that speak of how Microsoft has further advanced or is planning to advance in the future. There are also articles about Microsoft’s innovations and its plan to become a more sustainable company, or help homes becomes sustainable.
The blog has a series of different blog concentrations, such as, their “AI Blog” that focuses on how Microsoft can change society, or in particular, in the Decoding the Immune System blog, corporate vice president of AI Research created an article about how Microsoft’s research department has found ways to use Microsoft software to decode the human immune system and diagnosing diseases.
Another type of blog concentration is their “Microsoft on the Issues” blog where there are series of articles talking about politics, laws and regulations, and also public worries where Microsoft gives either advice or their input from Microsofts Council. For example, in their blog post Microsoft’s Council for Digital Good, this blog posts help readers understand the risks of certain ways of using the Internet and how to stay safe and away from potential Internet dangers.
The blog, like stated previously, is updated almost every week, if not every other week, and has a series of different bloggers, whether that being journalists and publicists from Microsoft or presidents, vice presidents, chiefs and/or managers creating these articles and blogs personally.
Microsoft has 1.35 million followers on Twitter. Their content is a mix between tweets pertaining the company, its software, its products, and also of their employees, likewise to their likes, retweets, and their replies a well. Their Twitter content mostly are about anything involving the company. Whether that would be links to their blog, links that will redirect the reader to their website, and any sort of marketing or advertising about their current, past, or future consumer products and software.
Their Twitter, though seems very professional, their retweets and likes of articles and tweets about their employees makes their account seem very friendly. They also post pictures from conferences and panels, giving the reader a quick look into what these events look like to those who are curious. Instead of the account being mainly about business and having a stoic and professional setting, their account seems friendly and usefully informative.
https://facebook.com/Microsoft
Microsoft has roughly 12.5 million followers on Facebook. Their posts are a mix of videos, photos, and blog posts that redirects the reader to their various other social media sites the company has. Every single post on Facebook has a photo attached to the post with very little text. The text that is included is very brief and gets to the point, letting the reader know what the post will be about if they are interested in reading said post in entirety.
On their Facebook page, there seems to be more posts pertaining humans rather than posts being mainly about Microsofts products and softwares. Many photos on their page are of smiling people or of people in general, giving the page a more friendly and welcoming feel. There seems to be a post multiple times within a single week, almost every other day there is a new Facebook post. All posts garner a large number of likes and comments and also shares.
https://linkedin.com/microsoft
Microsoft has almost 5 million followers on their LinkedIn profile. Compared to their Facebook page, the posts on LinkedIn are more professional and business oriented. They do have posts similar to the ones on their other various social media sites, however, the LinkedIn posts, are different in terms of sophistication and professionalism. Their are multiple posts throughout the day and each post receives an impressive amount of likes and comments per post.
YouTube
Microsoft has 487,202 subscribers on their YouTube channel. The channel has a number of videos and, to make things easier to navigate, the channel’s videos are categorized by playlists. These playlists include videos such as children creating software and decoding software with Microsoft products, podcasts, innovation series, and videos with everyday Microsoft employees. One video the channel has, is a quick 1 minute video that showcases Microsofts Garage Reality Room that the company has created and added into their headquarters to discover new ideas and innovation.
Though the YouTube channel posts consistently either daily or weekly, the videos do not garner a large amount of views or comments. Their older videos have garnered almost 50k views per video, whereas, their current videos do not exceed 2k views.
https://pinterest.com/microsoft
Microsofts Pinterest page has a very small number of followers, a total of 8,031 followers, which is, compared to their other social media sites, a substantially low number of followers. Their pins are mostly technology related and are of photos with Microsoft products showcased in them. There is not much on their Pinterest page though they have a large number of individual boards, the sheer amount of different boards is overwhelming and makes the reader not want to browse through the accounts pins.
https://instagram.com/microsoft
Microsoft has 1.5 million followers on their Instagram page. They mostly post photos, and add in a video every now and then. Similar to their Facebook page, almost all of the posts on Instagram are of people and hardly of Microsofts products. Their posts consists of photos and quick descriptions of influential leaders, such as the photo listed above, and of trending photo’s and hashtags that they also include in their posts. Their posts receive over 10k likes consistently for each post and also receive many comments, however, Microsoft very rarely replies to the comments.
Summation of the Analysis
Depending on the demographic their social media sites attract, their posts vary with being either friendly, creating a connection, or being professional and revolving around sophistication and merely stating facts and information. If the demographic of their followers is of a younger crowd, their posts are more about human connection and modern day worries and concerns. However, if their demographic is of a older generation, their posts are more professional and business oriented, or mainly states facts and information.
Digital Footprint
The first result when searching “Microsoft Corporation” on Google is their website, Microsoft.com. The next result are articles and news related to Microsoft. Followed by their Wikipedia page, then their NASDAQ information, and lastly the products and services provided by Microsoft.
While going through the next few pages of the Google results, their social media sites pop up such as their blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest page. Related searches to the company also pop up, such as their gaming consoles and other software’s and companies Microsoft has acquired over the years.
There are many articles about Microsoft, mostly being of their current and future products and services they are creating and also of the successes and/or failures the company has experienced.
The results that come up are very informative and not biased in terms of not just positive articles and results are showing up, articles about the company’s failures and things they can work on as well also show up in the search. The information that comes up is beneficial to those who are curious about the company and are interested in learning more.
Recommendations and Commendations
Microsoft knows their demographic well and what tone of voice they should use depending on what social media site they are using. They are informative, professional. Involved, and are willing and able to make a human connection which makes the multi-billionaire company not as intimidating or money and business generating and oriented as people perceive it is to be.
Microsoft has a number of various social media sites and it seems as if the company can do away with some that do not garner much attention from the public. Their current social media sites, which they utilize very frequently, such as Instagram, Twitter, FaceBook, and their blog have great results in terms of web traffic, whereas, their other sites, such as Pinterest and LinkedIn, do not garner the same amount of web traffic when they are compared amongst one another.
To improve their social media presence, the company should focus on the sites where people are most active and where their followers and subscribers are active as well in order to have a consistent social media presence.
Sources:
- https://blogs.microsoft.com/
- https://twitter.com/Microsoft?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
- https://www.facebook.com/Microsoft/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVtgtJQ8AZM&list=PLFPUGjQjckXET1TSWuDoPjYljfedxrA04
- https://www.pinterest.com/microsoft/
- https://www.instagram.com/microsoft/?hl=en
- https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/01/04/microsoft-adaptive-biotechnologies-announce-partnership-using-ai-decode-immune-system-diagnose-treat-disease/
- https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/01/09/kick-off-2018-with-online-safety-tips-from-microsofts-council-for-digital-good/
