Leveraging Social Media Marketing as a Microsoft Partner

Chloe Luu Tran - Digital Marketing Coordinator

Summary:

Leverage these social media channels to stand out among the competition as a Microsoft Partner.

Leveraging Social Media Marketing as a Microsoft Partner

Chloe Luu Tran - Digital Marketing Coordinator

Leverage these social media channels to stand out among the competition as a Microsoft Partner.

Social Media for Microsoft Partners

Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes

Intended Audience: Microsoft Partners, B2B Business Owners, B2B Tech Business Owners

Business communication has seen various changes in recent years, but one thing that has stayed consistent is that a buyer-centric approach goes a long way toward establishing your brand and maintaining a solid relationship with your audience. In the competitive B2B technology environment, social media is an effective avenue for businesses to engage customers and attract new leads. Let’s discover how you can incorporate social media marketing in your B2B marketing plan as a Microsoft Partner to stand out from the crowd.

What Social Media Marketing Means for Microsoft Partner

Social media marketing consists of utilizing social media platforms and channels to introduce your products or services to prospective customers and industry peers. Even though social media channels are often associated with B2C marketing, a Microsoft Partner like you can also utilize these platforms to introduce your solutions and services to prospects and level up your B2B marketing game.

It All Starts with ‘Why.’

All great actions start with why. The pandemic has shifted the way people communicate with one another – many discussions, meetings, and conferences now take place virtually. To reach more decision-makers, B2B marketers must think outside the box. Building a solid social media strategy helps humanize your tech services and provides valuable information to your audience. It’s estimated that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur on digital channels. Are you ready?

Get Started by Choosing the Right Social Media Platform

Getting started with social media marketing or upgrading your existing social media presence is not rocket science, but your approach must be strategic. The very first step is to identify the appropriate channel that caters to both your needs and your target market’s preferences.

Let’s discuss your options and figure out the best fit for your business:

LinkedIn is by far the most common referral generator among social media networks. LinkedIn is used by a majority of B2B organizations – over 90%, according to recent stats – and has been ranked as the best organic platform. As LinkedIn allows a higher character count per post for content sharing, you can opt for long-form and educational content while gaining credibility in the Microsoft Partner ecosystem and beyond in the minds of your target audience. In addition to long-form educational content, short videos, team profiling, employee experiences, and job openings also perform well on the platform.

Twitter

Known for its famous 280 characters limit, Twitter is loved by many B2B companies. You will even find several Microsoft thought leaders and MVPs on the channel. To leverage Twitter as a powerful marketing tool, you can follow relevant hashtags, integrate them into your tweets, and even start your own to maximize visibility.

Instagram

Even though Instagram is thought of as a B2C marketing tool, B2B organizations see their biggest engagement rates on Instagram. This means that among the mainstream social media platforms, Instagram encourages the highest number of interactions per number of followers. Instagram is a great B2B marketing tool if you want to go beyond your products and solutions, and put a face to your company. The Microsoft Corporation has a thriving account that adds a more people-centric touch to the enterprise and its solutions. In short, Instagram can highlight your unique company culture and can be a generational employee recruitment tool.

YouTube

YouTube provides a splendid video marketing interface for B2B businesses. It is a suitable place to upload your product demos, how-tos, recorded events, frequently asked questions, and guided walkthroughs. YouTube enables you to share educational content that captures the visual learners of your industry. Showcasing your subject matter experts on this platform is a great way to garner new admirers and new business.

Facebook

As one of the pioneer social media sites, Facebook now gives business pages a wide range of media to work with, from a text-based post, a single image, photo collections (or album), to long and short-form videos. In short, Facebook is a great place for your brand to test out different strategies. As of late, Facebook and Instagram have been merged to the Meta Business Suite to save time and make content distribution easier.

TikTok

A social network centered around making and sharing bite-sized video content, TikTok’s popularity has grown tremendously. As of its relaunch in 2018, TikTok has gained popularity and immense endorsements from celebrities too. With its assortment of sounds, filters, and massive musical library, TikTok has made content creation and sharing easier than ever. As its popularity rises, many B2B marketers are realizing TikTok is a great channel to promote and connect with their audience in a quirky way, attracting a younger demographic than other social media channels. Check out Microsoft’s channel for more inspiration if you are considering joining the platform with tens of thousands of B2B SaaS companies.

Snapchat

We understand that as a B2B brand, you have skepticism about the platform where the main audience’s age ranges from 16 to 29 years old and the material disappears after 24 hours. However, while Snapchat isn’t your traditional text-based communication platform like Twitter or LinkedIn, it provides you with a space to share memorable moments. In short, you can display your brand’s personality, quirks, and feature the faces behind all of your awesome work.

As of 2022, there are nearly 500 millions users active on Pinterest. Known for its photo-sharing feature and ‘pin’ dashboard, Pinterest has been the go-to platform for individuals and brands for inspiration. Pinterest comes in fourth in terms of the most popular platforms in the United States, according to Pew Research. As a social network centred around photo sharing, you can repurpose your text-based content into images. And of course, you need keyword and hashtag strategies to optimize for the best visibility! Peep Microsoft‘s Pinterest for pinspiration.

Unlike other social media platforms, Telegram operates on groups, i.e Telegram pods. On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, an individual must follow a company page before getting an update from the company. On the contrary, Telegram provides a more personal touch. This means that when you send an update to a group, they receive the update directly without it getting lost amongst a bunch of other notifications. With this robust functionality, you can create a private or public group to keep your audience informed about your new wins, upcoming webinars, or exciting offers.

More than just a messaging app, WhatsApp can now aid in your marketing strategies and bring in qualified leads to your B2B brand as well. With its main function as a messaging app, marketers can send company updates directly to a group of people they have added to an audience, or to personal numbers. This enables businesses to provide direct support to customers 24/7 and add a more personal touch to their interactions with customers.

Social Media Marketing Made Easy with the Mavens

After reading this blog it may seem like you should throw your name into every hat on the social media platforms to broaden your brand awareness. However, as Social Media Mavens, we recommend starting out with the basics for meeting your B2B audience where they already are – LinkedIn and Twitter – to create a foothold before dipping into other channels. Once you have an established presence on these platforms, other avenues will be easier to conquer.

The social media channels you choose to move forward with depend highly on the persona of your brand. For example, LinkedIn and Twitter lean towards the expertise of an organization, whereas Instagram and TikTok rely on the cultural aspects of the workplace. Keep that in mind before setting up new accounts. Now that you are familiar with the existing platforms, check out our blog on social media best practices to start developing your social media marketing strategy.

As mentioned above, not all platforms are mandatory for Microsoft Partners – they only make sense if they align with your business. If you have questions about social media platforms or marketing strategies, Maven Collective Marketing is the award-winning marketing agency to help you define your goals, strategy, and plan. If you are looking to develop your business, generate more qualified leads, and work with experts who understand your Microsoft Partner Marketing needs, the Mavens are just one chat away.

Chloe Luu Tran - Digital Marketing Coordinator

Chloe Luu-Tran is a Digital Marketing Coordinator with Maven Collective Marketing. With her background in communications, digital marketing, and graphic design, Luu-Tran brings a result-driven approach to every marketing project and campaign she works on. Over the years, Luu-Tran has had the opportunities to work in many different industries such as STEM-based companies and non-profit organizations to help deliver their stories and mission statements to their target audiences. Luu-Tran thrives working on content marketing, social media marketing, and event management.

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