Community Relations

Philanthropy and charity have forever been the cornerstones of good deeds. The act of giving to those less fortunate or helping out others shows clear appreciation for the human existence. The respect you receive based on helping others is both apparent and powerful. People will respect you and hold you to a higher esteem, trusting you more in the long run.

The same goes for large corporations. Microsoft, the tech giant that has dominated the industry for years has had fierce competition with rival companies like Apple and Sony. Allowing your company to fall out of the public's good graces is unthinkable. The best way to show them you aren't just a faceless business is to create and run charity organizations and events.

Microsoft has dedicated a lot of time to helping out those in need. As the Microsoft handbook on their website will tell you: "At Microsoft, giving is ingrained in our culture, a cornerstone of our citizenship and as our employees will tell you, one of the most rewarding — not to mention fun — aspects of our jobs." 
 
Their "Giving Program" is an annual month set aside for all their charity events. "Microsoft’s annual Employee Giving Campaign takes place in the U.S. throughout the year, with a special push every October." During this month they hold 5k's, an online auction, and various community outreach programs. Money is donated from other people and themselves and Microsoft will match any employee donation up to $15,000. 

According to the data collected on their website, Microsoft employees have dedicated over $1 Billion dollars to charity since its inception in 1983. Between 2005-2013 those same employees worked 2 million hours at their chosen charity. They have also given over $6.5 billion dollars in tech equipment, computers and services in 30 years.

 

One of the coolest and most unique things that I found was that Microsoft has a "Volunteering tool" that matches each employee up with a philanthropy that best suits their interests and time commitment. It is an effective way to get your workers to donate time and money to causes. 

Another great program that this company founded is Microsoft YouthSpark. YouthSpark is a initiative that was founded 3 years ago by CEO Steven Ballmer. This idea was created to help the young people all over the world. Its main goal is giving the same opportunities to people who were not born with money or in the best areas. It hopes to level the playing field and lower the amount of uneducated and unemployed youth. 

Microsoft helps through giving money to 30+ programs and 186 youth-serving nonprofits. Grants are handed out based on criteria and an already scheduled group of philanthropy. The goals was in 3 years to help over 300 million young people. 

Here is a map of all the groups and places they have donated time and money too. This is on a prominent place in their website and honestly is quite impressive when you see the blurred tacks that represent the aid.

 

  The last event I will talk about is the Imagine Cup Worldwide finals. The Imagine Cup an event whereby about 87 teams, 309 student participants and 71 different countries compete against each other to come up with the best ideas for projects that help community programs and benefit people. They also solve challenges and donate many hours to service. This program ultimately decided the best project and gives them a 3 million dollar grant to make their dream a reality. A excellent idea in reality because it is service creating service, there is no wrong that they can do. 

Now clearly there seems to be a focus on young children, even the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has part of their mission to aid education in the United States. It seem that this company has based most of their philanthropy on helping young children who grew up with less opportunities than others. It seems they want to level the playing field. A great focus if you ask me, I believe it is easily the most unique and genuine form of charity. 

The work that Microsoft does is directly parallels their company values. There is a large section in the employee handbook that shows how important Community Relations is the company. It is clear that their goal is to make money and help people. 

And of course this is absolutely the best thing they could be doing. Giving back to those in the community makes Microsoft look so good in the eyes of the consumer. Being able to say "Oh, I should buy this. Microsoft donates 300 million dollars to charity every year." Knowing your money isn't just going into the pockets of a CEO but rather those who are less fortunate is not only effective, it's powerful. Increasing the positive reputation of the company will always increase the quarterly revenue. 

Giving back is simplest way to make your consumers see the company as a friendly organization not a faceless business. People are always more likely to spend money at places they trust. 

It also acts as a buffer if Microsoft screws up and has to undergo crisis management. Being able to say "But we donated billion to charity" is the best tool in repairing your image in the shortest possible time. 

I believe personally that they are doing more than enough to help the community. Their programs and charity groups donate more money than almost any other company. Their employees care about the work they're doing and best of all it definitely looks like Microsoft cares too. Dedicating that much time and resources to helping people is not fake. I give them a lot of credit, Microsoft knows how to perform correct Community Relations. It's good because for a company as big as Microsoft people expect them to do the right thing. After gaining a  reputation for continuously being one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, it is crucial to show that you are helping out those in need. 

Regardless, it is apparent that Microsoft is doing a perfect job creating a sense of Charitable spirit. Making people pleased with their purchase and want to return to their store.   

Microsoft-the king of computers, could easily be assumed to be the "king" of social media. This is far from the truth in regards to their campaigns. Microsoft is a very dynamic company when it comes to way they do Public Relations, they have many different branches of the same corporation and therefore have many separate departments to maintain.

Let's take for example Microsoft's video game department. Their staple machine, the xbox, is one of the best selling consoles of all time. They have had two different generations of the setups so far-the xbox, and the xbox 360. Both have gotten great feedback and good sales.

Their new system the Xbox One is set to release Nov. 22nd 2013. Initially it gained positive press and players loved the new system. Then a crisis struck when during E3 (a huge conference for the release of new systems and games) they announced that you would not be able to play games that you did not purchase yourself, or unless you were connected online. This was done to prevent users from sharing games, buying used games and not have online connectivity.

People were outraged, the original things people were saying were quickly turned around and the competitor, SONY took the lead. Immediately following the presentation SONY announced that they were not going to require anybody to connect to online or restrict used games. People went nuts. They did not have to do anything on social media people did it for them.

Here are some of the tweets making jabs at Microsoft:

Now you see how many people retweeted those? Between just these two tweets there are about 10,000 retweets. That means 10,000 people freely advertised their product.

In the end Microsoft reversed all these original ideas and went the same route as SONY, but not after the damage was done.

Now for the most part Microsoft Social Media is a hit or miss. Their twitter:
 (https://twitter.com/Microsoft)
which I talked about last time is mediocre. It does not really try to reach out to fans or make an attempt to get positive feedback. It is by no means bad but it sure as heck isn't good. 

Here are some examples:

This is a very bad tweet. It is blatantly selling an object and putting information on your twitter that is not interesting or fun. People see ads every single day, they don't want to know about more of them on their social feed.

Tweets like these however:

Are much better. This is what makes people follow Microsoft. Not the ads. They could be doing a much better job then they are now. It is not even just the broad branch of the company, even the smaller sections, like Xbox, do it.

(https://twitter.com/Xbox)

 

These are two ads IN A ROW on twitter. Come on Microsoft are you even trying?

Now as I mentioned in my last blog post. Their Facebook:

 (https://www.facebook.com/Microsoft)

 is miles ahead of their twitter. You will constantly see things like this:

 

These aren't clear advertisements but they do a great job of getting the message across. This is the sort of thing that will give users the initial "follow"reaction and to hold their attention. This is exactly what you want as a company. Once you get them to follow you on facebook or twitter that's when you can constantly push a good image on them and they will see it everyday. 

 As far as their blogs are concerned, I actually really like theirs.

 (http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/)

 It really doesn't try to preach or be anything like the other two sites. It is strictly about the hardware and technology in their products. I think, for a blog, this is perfect. The people who want to follow a Microsoft blog are the ones that want to know the details of what their buying. They definitely don't want ads, and jokes and friendly messages aren't all that exciting. Things like this:

and this:

The second one is really clever if you look at it. It talks about the hardware behind the surface 2 tablet while simultaneously discussing how the tablet has helped Delta pilots. 

"On Monday, Delta announced its partnership with Microsoft to equip each of our more than 11,000 pilots with Surface 2 electronic flight bag devices operating on Windows RT 8.1."

"The innovative handheld tablet puts in the hands of our talented group of aviators the right tools to do their job and do it well as they fly more than 160 million passengers safely every year."

This not only looks good in the eyes on potential investors, but also to the public who sees it how it is being implemented to directly insure their safety. It's positive PR, a hardware demo, and an advertisement all wrapped into one. And in the end most people won't realize that. This is how Bill Gates feels when he makes sales because of social media:

Microsoft-as far as PR is concerned-does a pretty average job. They definitely could be doing much more and more effectively. But compared to many other companies they are miles ahead. They do what I call taking the safe route when it comes to social media. Many companies when they crack jokes and make their main goal humor often times run into trouble when the consumers call on them to be serious or they find their jokes offensive. Microsoft's social media is so neutral that it's almost impossible to ever get upset with their content. Not a bad move, but the risky ones are the ones that get the page views and in the end the products.

They are covering a lot of ground though. If I was tasked with running their campaign I wouldn't change a whole lot, because they aren't doing a bad job. Some of the only things I would do different, (or do for that matter) would be to:

Go around and hold PR events.

I would travel to all the major cities and most states and have events where people can meet with designers, and with Microsoft employees and use their products for free. I would have things to draw people in like free merchandise and maybe entertainment. Now I realize this has nothing to do with social media but you can promote these events on social media and then show them off on how good the company is to it's customer on social media.

Get as many followers as possible.

I would hold contests to give the winner of a retweet a prize. People will be quick to retweet if the prize is good because it is a simple button click. For them it's nothing, but for Microsoft it has far reaching effects. Each retweet goes out to all their followers to see meaning that there is a strong chance that when they see the contest they will participate and eventually end up following their feed. This is exactly what you want as a social media PR chair. The more followers the better off you are. As of now I have yet to see Microsoft make any attempt to gain more followers, not a bad strategy but not at all an effective one. 

Besides these two things I couldn't really see myself changing a lot. Their social media, as I said, is neither bad nor good it's just present. But at the end of the day they don't need to be present because that's how you get left behind and to have the biggest computer, software and technology giant in the world be only "okay" at social media is DEFINITELY NOT GOOD.

Microsoft: one of the world's largest corporations, has long been a pinnacle of the correct way to do business. They have continuously been in the top ten of the most profitable companies on Earth boasting a average quarterly revenue of about 280 million. (Microsoft Cop. Investor Relations)

Their main revenue is the manufacture, and sale of computing parts and operating systems. They are the most successful at this, even beating out Apple in almost every quarter.

They don't just make those two things though, Microsoft leads the market in the production of game systems, cellular phones and digital services (MSN.)

Bill Gates, the famous creator and pioneer of the company stepped down in January 2000 to pursue charity work. Although he is still the current chairman of the company. His foundation the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was founded to increase world-wide healthcare and lessen extreme poverty. (Gates Foundation 2008)

The current CEO, Steve Ballmer, has held the position since January 2000. His estimated total wealth is somewhere near 15 billion, which compared to other corporate officers places him in the top 20.

(http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-23announcementpr.aspx)



Their Public Relations programs are decent and manage to get the message across. The great thing about Microsoft is they seldom need to go to crisis management. Their computing business is straight forward and does not often go in the public light. It is their other endeavors that usually give Microsoft the most grief.


Before we go into that we will talk about their social media. Their twitter, which currently is clocking in at about 2,500,000 followers, is nothing to write home about. It's not a bad twitter; it tweets about the new products coming out and the philanthropy that they do. But in successful social media you need to make sure people are interested and willing to share with their friends. Most people are not interested in the new products coming out, as they see advertisements every day.

This is an example of a Microsoft tweet:

 They're selling a product: "Kodu" and are pointing you to where they want your wallet to go. Not a "bad" strategy per se, but in the long run people will not share these tweets which is the main benefit of social media.

Here is an example of a great tweet:

Taco Bell always manages to tweet great things that people laugh at. If people enjoy what you're doing they will share it with their friends. Notice how both tweets had the same purpose: to sell the product. Yet they both did it in two very different ways. Taco bell covers up their motive with humor, Microsoft makes no attempt whatsoever.

Now these are not necessarily bad things, people do expect these companies to sell. They just want them to make an effort to relate to them. It is these tenets that make Taco Bell a very successful social media operation.  

Facebook on the other hand is some spot-on PR. Their social presence is more of a story board of people who work for them and good charity the company does. It casts them in a good light and makes people feel much better about their purchases and the way the company is heading. 

Just look here: we have an interactive event on Tuesday where anybody can participate, the question is unique and the winner gets a prize. It's so simple there's really no reason for the average followers not to do it. And by doing so they are effortlessly advertising. 

The story on the right shows the cafe at the Microsoft headquarters. It shows that the company values their employees and wants them to succeed. This lets the average consumer know that their money is going to good place and makes them feel better about the company and purchases. This is great public relations.

My blog is here to record and talk about the public relations of Microsoft. We will be going into details about the way they do business and how they manage the way the public sees them. I will breakdown the correct way to do this and either agree or disagree with the way they do it. And in the end it will give everyone a healthy representation of the way businesses do, well business.