Windows Developer Engagement Program
Three-year social and content programme that grew the Windows developer audience from 15,000 to 1.1 million followers — while cutting cost per conversion by 75% and delivering 150% year-on-year engagement growth.
Microsoft · 2019 · 
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The brief
Microsoft needed to deepen its relationship with developers building on the Windows platform. The developer audience is notoriously resistant to brand-first marketing — they want technical depth, peer credibility, and content that respects their intelligence. The challenge was to build an authentic social and content presence that could earn that trust at scale, and then turn audience growth into measurable business outcomes.
What I did
I created and executed the long-term social and content strategy for Windows Developer, managing a high-performing agency team of creatives, copywriters, and strategists across the full programme.
The strategy centred on three principles: lead with the developer community (not the product), publish content worth sharing, and use paid social surgically to amplify what was already working organically. Creative and video formats were a constant focus — we pushed into new ad formats early, well ahead of competitors, to stand out in congested developer feeds and drive engagement that justified the investment.
We ran the programme across three consecutive years, iterating the strategy each cycle based on performance data. Each year exceeded targets.
The results
- 65x audience growth — from 15,000 followers in 2015 to more than 1.1 million
- 150% year-on-year increase in social engagements, alongside a 7x increase in web traffic
- 75% decrease in cost per conversion — Windows Developer became the largest digital source of developer leads for Microsoft
- Best-in-class recognition internally for paid social performance and creative innovation