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.