From social media and content management at Microsoft to independent marketing work
ABOUT THE GUEST: Over the past 3 months, Alex has leveraged his expertise in marketing and content creation to launch a career as a freelance copywriter and digital marketer. Before pivoting into freelance work, Alex was a Social Media and Content Manager at Microsoft. He got his Bachelor’s degree in English at Western University and later pursued a Master’s and PhD in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.
Q: What is the main goal of marketing and why is it important?
I studied English in university, so everything I’ve absorbed about marketing has been through osmosis on the job. From what I learned during my time at Microsoft, marketing is really about enabling brand recognition, affinity, and credibility. In the B2B space, I see it as establishing a “cloud of brand” that salespeople can use to build purchase intent and direct relationships.
Q: You studied English and Medieval Studies in university. Why and how did you pivot into social media marketing?
Writing is a big part of being a PhD student: producing your thesis, articles, conference papers — you name it. As part of that role, I explored many different texts, voices, and modes of writing. At the same time, I was a relatively early adopter of Twitter. I ended up loving the ways you could play with your voice to create memes and take part in joke formats, as well as the overall discursive nature of the platform. My affinity for Twitter sparked my interest in social media as a whole.
After that realization, I started looking for social media management opportunities to help support my PhD studies financially. The basic skills are being able to understand how people post and interact on social media platforms, and I was confident I could accomplish that in a professional context. From there, I landed positions at Ontario cultural and tourism organizations.
After breaking into the social media management space, I worked my way through small contracts and finally found my way into a role at Microsoft in Education Canada. Microsoft has a lot of freedom within teams to build out your practice and realm of responsibility. So what started out as a social media marketing role expanded to include integration into our product and audience marketing teams alongside creating and managing the Microsoft in Education Canada blog. Eventually, I progressed to managing the social media, blog, and newsletter content for Minecraft: Education Edition, also part of Microsoft’s education ecosystem. For this role, I was able to work remotely with my team at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond from my home in Toronto.
Q: How has your academic background helped you excel as a marketer?
Studying literature definitely helped me master the writing and communication side of marketing. As an English major and Medieval Studies PhD, I had the chance to read texts in wildly diverse modes, tones, and voices, from ancient poetry to conversational modern writers. For people that want to pursue copywriting and content management, I always tell them that you’re not going to be a good writer unless you’re a good reader. In order to write well in a variety of styles and mediums, the best thing you can do is expose yourself to them.
Understanding how to deliver on different objectives is deeply important too. Being versatile in different writing styles is great, but ultimately a piece of writing should persuade people to take a certain action.
Q: Did anything surprise you when you first landed a job in social media marketing? What do you wish you had known?
Coming from a literary and arts background, one of the biggest challenges I had was reporting. My academic life was full of reading, persuasive writing, and literary criticism, so representing data simply and demonstrating success to stakeholders as part of my regular execution cycle was an adjustment. Even though reporting was new territory for me, I came to understand its importance very quickly. If you can’t analyze a campaign’s impact accurately, how do you know if it’s driving value and ROI?
One thing I’d say to students looking to become marketers: cultivate the skills you have a natural affinity for, then work hard to learn what you don’t know. If you take care of those two things, you’ll do just fine! The skills are what you bring to the table, and those will be applicable regardless of the context. You can learn discipline-specific knowledge on the job. The skills are your value, and grounding yourself in a discipline is how you realize it within a specific role.
Q: What did your average day look like as a social media marketer at Microsoft?
First thing in the morning, I would make my to-do list for the day. I’d typically spend an hour or two going through emails, and I tended to have one or two hours of meetings throughout the day. I blocked off an hour and a half every day for generating social media posts, since my primary role was social media management. From there, I’d spend the rest of the day on other creative tasks like composing blogs and writing email newsletters, as well as reporting.
Looking at the larger picture, I was not only a content producer but also a project manager. My supervisors would ask me to promote a certain campaign, for example a special live lesson for Minecraft: Education Edition with teachers across America.
In that case, I would be responsible for resolving dependencies as I put our promotional blog and posts together. Do we have the information necessary for me to generate content? Are there creative assets associated? Is there a sign-up page in place? Creating content was a large part of my workday, but I was also responsible for tapping stakeholders to pull all the pieces together into one cohesive project.
Q: Are there any projects at Microsoft that were particularly memorable?
One project that comes to mind was a series of Canadian workshops I supported called TransformEd. The goal was to help teachers learn how Microsoft tech can enhance the classroom experience, and the campaign featured in-person events for teachers and school leaders in cities across Canada. I was involved with every stage of the project, from the initial branding to content, promotion, and onsite social support. The event helped generate quality leads among decision makers from our target audience, simultaneously building positive brand affinity and knowledge among frontline educators across Canada, so it was a big success.
I think one factor that helped create such a great turnout was how coordinated we were with our teacher training partners and the sales team throughout the entire planning process. The sales team gave us detailed insights about our audiences, which helped us design the workshops in a way that optimized the value we could offer. Meanwhile, our training partners leveraged their close relationships with educators to build groundswell and generate demand.
One key learning from that project is that if your audience doesn’t inherently see the value in what you’re offering and how it benefits them, they won’t engage. Truly understanding and clearly sharing the value of what you’re promoting is key to its success.
Q: What inspired you to transition your career into freelance work?
Right out of university, I wanted to work in a stable corporate setting. My goals at the time were to pay off my debt, build a solid career foundation, and develop some key marketing skills.
After getting a few corporate roles on my resume and gaining experience as a marketer, I then decided to pivot into freelance work. I’m the type of person that likes creative pursuits, the outdoors, flexibility, and a sense of ownership over my time. I knew a freelance lifestyle would accommodate that, so I gave it a shot. Ever since, not only do I have more control over my work-life balance, but working on my own schedule has actually improved the quality of my projects.
Overall, freelancing is great if you like concentrated, project-based work. Once you build your personal brand and get established, you can really craft your experience and cherrypick projects you’re interested in. It’s also an exciting opportunity to learn and explore several different industries and content categories.
The RevHouse Rundown:
- Marketing is about creating a “cloud of brand” that establishes company credibility, awareness, and interest.
- Pursuing a degree in English is a great way to build your copywriting skills as a future content marketer. If you’re already in university, try to take as many writing and literature based courses as possible.
- Focus on developing marketing skills over marketing knowledge. Your skills are your value, whereas discipline-specific knowledge can be learned on the job.
- The daily life of a content marketer includes writing a lot of blog articles, social media posts, and email newsletters. But there’s also a project management aspect too, especially on the managerial level.
- Launching your marketing career in a corporate role is recommended. It helps you pay off debt, develop core skills, and build up your resume. Once you’ve established experience and a strong personal brand, freelancing full time is a great idea.
Next interview coming soon. If you enjoyed this article, make sure to give it a like!
