B2B SUMMIT 2014 - CASE STUDY: How Microsoft amplified their social media brand messages through their trusted advocates

1. Commercial in Confidence – (c) purechannelapps Ltd. 2014 1
Presented by:
Steven Woodgate, SMB Social Media Community Manager, Microsoft
Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder, purechannelapps
How Microsoft
use their Sales Partners
to engage B2B
customers

2. Commercial in Confidence – (c) purechannelapps Ltd. 2014 2
• purechannelapps™, UK-based, incorporated in 2011
• socialondemand®: social media amplification software
• newsondemand: dynamic and targeted e-
communications
Background

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73% of IT executives are influenced by social networks
in decision making - Socialcast
Empowered tech buyers are two-thirds
into the buying cycle before engaging sales
Forrester Research
60% of business decision makers say branded content
helps them make better product decisions - Socialcast
Social Networking – Why is it so critical?

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Too many hurdles
B2B organisations are struggling to involve their brand
advocates in this ‘influence’ cycle.
Employees, partners and other brand advocates have no time,
resources and, in some cases, limited marketing expertise.
Intermediaries are unable to produce professional collateral.
Too many brands are vying for their intermediaries’ attention.
Need simple, easy-to-use tools and programmes that get results.
Brands need to develop and manage ‘influence’ programmes on a
global level.

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Social Media Amplification via brand advocates and
intermediaries
The posts are published automatically on the partners’
social network(s), if they have selected this option.
1. Brands inputs
news items (and
tag them)
2. Partners receive the news,
log in, view/ edit/ post the items 3. The news items are
posted on the partners’
social network(s)
4. Their followers
(buyers) read the posts,
click on the links and call
their partners!

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Social Media Amplification via brand advocates and
intermediaries
2. Partners receive the news,
log in, view/ edit/ post the items

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Social Media Amplification via brand advocates and
intermediaries
3. The news items are
posted on the partners’
social network(s)
4. Their followers
(buyers) read the posts,
click on the links and call
their partners!

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Social Media Amplification
Extensive analytics engine to report
on the success of each partner, post,
campaign, and geography
Robust multi-level content creation and
approval workflow to support multi-
regional and multi-business unit
organizations
Comprehensive filtering for
partners who can select to only
receive the content that matters to
their followers
Content-publishing APIs
for Twitter/ Facebook/ LinkedIn.
Partners do not have to login to
their social networks to post.

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Brand messages can reach much wider audiences, as you can leverage your
sales
teams, sales/channel partners (all types), alliance partners and other brand
advocates.
Content reaches those that count – the ‘consumers’ - through those who can
actually sell the ‘sales staff/ sales partners’.
Easy for partners to become ‘socially active’ (3 clicks: email to post)
It empowers the ‘through’ intermediaries with compliant content (closer
engagement with the brand and more socially active)
Enterprise-class platform (27 languages) enabling you to distribute social media
content globally
Cost-effective solution, with a SEM-smashing cost per click of just $0.09/ $0.35
The results and benefits

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What our customers say
“Really, the ongoing success of our relationship with purechannelapps™ is as a
result of two things; firstly, their product is exceptional, a different league to the
competition, and secondly, the ongoing and passionate support of purechannelapps
and their account management.” – Michelle Graff, Director, PureStorage
“socialondemand has delivered on every KPI we monitored, and is now an integral
part of our marketing strategy.” Chris Harges, Director of Global Marketing, Mountain
Hardwear
“socialondemand provides us with a leading-edge, dynamic platform by which we can
continue to communicate through our channels to reach our customers.” Angela
Leech, Channel Marketing Programs Manager, EMEA, Adobe
"Socialwave enables us to extend our messaging reach to tens of thousands of our
partners’ followers. We look forward to incorporating this into our corporate social
media strategy and driving more channels sales

11. Commercial in Confidence – (c) purechannelapps Ltd. 2014 11
Presented by:
Steven Woodgate, SMB Social Media Community Manager, Microsoft
Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder, purechannelapps
How Microsoft
use their Sales Partners
to engage B2B
customers

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Case study – Microsoft
Microsoft already ran
successful partner marketing
programmes
Microsoft believed they lacked
a key tool in their arsenal-a tool
to socially enable their partners
Microsoft knew their partners
lacked the time and resources
to create their own content
A tool would need to be cost
effective and easy to use for
both them and their partners
$ Without the resources, time or
budget, partners were turning
their back on social media
Microsoft realised that
a socially empowered
and active channel
network would
generate demand and
leads for partners
through their vast
social media
networks.

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Case study – Microsoft
• One month trial (July 2013).
• MicrosoftSocialOnDemand.
• During the trial, Microsoft tested different pieces of high quality
content, to get a picture of how this content and socialondemand
would work with a larger base of partners.
• Via 20 partners, 66 posts were reposted 2,435 times by partners (37
times per post), generating 19,900 short url clicks/ retweets/ likes.

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• Full roll-out (November 2013) – 500 user licenses in the UK
Case study – Microsoft – Key stats
324 Users
(UK, SMB) 4,448 likes
1,123 Social Media accounts
added, with a combined
4,750,000
followers
280 Partners
343 Posts by
Microsoft
Up to 19%
click-through
rate
186,214
clicks
28,791 re-posts
CPC: £0.20

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Case study – Microsoft – Our posts
• We provide content for ‘Devices’ and ‘Services’, for ‘Consumers’,
‘SMBs’ and ‘Enterprises’.
• We mix Microsoft product content with industry news.
• We publish between 10 and 20 posts per week.
“Building the Business Case for Your Social Business Strategy”
6,598 clicks (most for a single post)
“Like The Lions, businesses face challenges
and rely on backroom teams to be competitive”
100% re-posting by partners
“The ten most irritating things about working from home”
20% click-through rate (clicks per connections)

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Case study – Microsoft – Partner feedback
“This is a great tool, simple to use and really effective. I love
being able to share good quality, relevant content
consistently. It’s really helped us create a presence on
social media, and no doubt has helped Microsoft, too.”
Saffra Hale, Trinity Expert Systems, a Microsoft partner.
“The socialondemand tool is just brilliant. The ability to
customise what content we get from Microsoft, and
seamlessly post it to our social media accounts as our own
content is a huge benefit to our social media efforts.”
Howard Blacksmith, PFK Cooper Parry, a Microsoft partner.
“This platform is a positive sign from Microsoft that they care
about the partners and are making a positive contribution to
build a sustainable and valuable business for them.”
Mitchell Feldman, Cloudamour Ltd, a Microsoft partner

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Case study – Microsoft
“At Microsoft, we see our partners as an integral part of our business
operations and are always looking at cost-effective ways of supporting our
mutual marketing efforts.”
“socialondemand answered many requirements we had,
turning out to be even more popular with our partners than we anticipated.”
“We are now able to make a real difference to our partners
and can track how successful they are when it comes to social media,
in terms of customer engagement, interactions and business opportunities.”
Gemma Wood
SMB Customer Marketing Manager
Small and Mid-market Solutions and Partners
Microsoft UK.

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Amplify your messages through your advocates’ social
networks
You may not do social media…
But your customers/ prospects, employees, sales
partners and brand advocates do!
Social media amplification will enable your
extended sales teams (internal and external) to be
more engaged (with you) and more ‘socially
active’.
You will be able to reach new audiences and drive
sales via social media.
socialondemand is a new and cost-effective way to
influence potential/ existing buyers.

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Thank you.
Steven Woodgate
SMB Social Media Community Manager, Microsoft
a-stwoo@microsoft.com / @MicrosoftSB
Olivier Choron
CEO and Founder, purechannelapps
olivierc@purechannelapps.com
+44 (0)7876 472 461 / @purechannelapps
http://purechannelapps.com/uploads/infographic_socialondemand_PCA.pdf