The Problem: When operating in a channel-orientated business, it is important that vendors involve their partners and resellers in marketing activities. They are an incredibly valuable resource for reaching a wider audience and increasing brand awareness, but having control over branding and information being shared is paramount.
Sadly, with 80% of resellers* stating that time is an issue when finding and posting quality content, and 68% lacking quality content to share, it is clear that channel partners are finding it difficult to get involved with social media.
The Solution: To make social media work for itself and its partners, Microsoft UK uses socialondemand® from purechannelapps™ to amplify brand messages on social media. The company can now reach an audience of 21 million contacts, or the followers of their own channel partners.
Microsoft UK discovered that 89% of these resellers feel that this platform adds value to their business and is relevant to their customers, while 87% find it easy to now source relevant content and 96% find it easy to post this content on their social networks.
By socially enabling partners with compliant and relevant content, Microsoft can retain control of their content, and consistently amplify brand messages to the millions of social media followers that partners have.
The Perks: Microsoft can create and schedule posts, and deliver them to specific partners or employees. Content also can be tailored based on specific countries or territories, and for any social network, be it Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. But socialondemand does the rest: emails — with the relevant content — are sent to the users who want it. They can then edit, send or schedule the posts to any of their networks in just three clicks.
socialondemand presents a win-win-win scenario for all involved: Microsoft, their partners and their partners’ followers! Microsoft resellers are more inclined to post their content, gaining a competitive advantage in the market.
* Microsoft UK surveyed 60 channel partners using MicrosoftSocialonDemand in the UK in January 2015.