As a leading name in the tech space, Microsoft recognized a gap in their reach on social media among younger generations. In order to foster a relationship with these future developers, Microsoft Developer chose to venture into Tiktok, but this wasn’t just about posting to meet a content quota or market the latest products. We set out with a unique goal: make the developer identity celebratory, not technical. To shift the conversation from what developers do to who they are: people shaping the future of technology with curiosity, creativity, and plenty of memes.
To achieve our goal, we built a test-and-deploy strategy focused on the weird and wild energy behind experimentation, prioritizing authenticity over polish and curiosity over perfection. Through this strategy, we began to understand what actually resonates in the community: the memes, in-jokes, and emotional highs and lows of coding. We identified 3 key components that on the surface may not appear to mix, but we found to be effective with the proper balance:
Once we unlocked these components, we developed a method of using brainrot-style content to meet our audience where they may not expect to see us.
We went all-in with flashy edits set to phonk beats, meant to energize our dev audience. We were pioneering into a space most brands avoid, a wild, experimental frontier, and it let us connect in a way that felt native to the platform.
With their attention captured, we delivered a motivational message in their authentic way of communicating, in order to establish trust and inspire them.
From day one, our goal was to set a voice that felt native to dev TikTok and create real conversation around Microsoft’s tools without slipping into “brand-speak.” Today, we’ve defined our voice in the sea of sameness of tech on TikTok, and continue to build the trust that we’ve earned and motivate this new generation of developers.
The content format that we established utilizing the 3 key components we identified resulted in incredible growth in our first year:
Beyond the numbers, the unquantifiable part of our success is the trust and respect that we’ve garnered from our community, as seen through the positivity and excited engagement within our comments, further supported by our engaging community management. We’ve truly created a space where developers can come, feel seen, and hopefully feel driven and motivated to get back on the grind.
