Microsoft’s Windows 10 Debut: Did Social Buzz Around the Launch Outshine the Competition?

From the iPhone 6 to the new Galaxy Note 4, technology brands have had a busy fall, releasing their latest products and innovations. And social has been busy discussing the latest releases—so much so that we recently covered the impact of product launches on social mentions. When Microsoft announced the launch of Windows 10, we knew that the product was sure to cause a splash in social. But did Microsoft’s latest debut outshine its competitors’ announcements? We found out using uberVU, Hootsuite’s deep listening and analytics tool.

We tracked social data points such as mentions, exposure and more to see the impact made by Microsoft’s Windows 10 announcement. For the past two weeks, Microsoft registered 1,346,592 mentions. As you can see from the mentions trendline, the brand hit a huge spike from September 29 to October 3, centering around the Windows 10 debut on September 30. That spike alone brought in 398,329 mentions—almost a third of Microsoft’s total mentions. That’s one big announcement!

The Windows 10 announcement earned Microsoft a 1.5x lift in brand mentions for five days, which was pretty on par with product-related spikes we measured for other tech industry leaders. When Sony announced the latest additions to its Xperia line, it saw a 1.6x lift in mentions for 4 days. The debut of Samsung’s latest Galaxy products was similar, causing a 1.3x increase for 4 days. The only outlier was Apple’s iPhone 6 announcement, which doubled the field with a 3x lift in brand mentions over 4 days. Microsoft’s latest announcement may not have topped Apple’s latest debut in social, but its spike in mentions did last longer.

Next, let’s take a look at just how far mentions of Microsoft went in social by diving into the brand’s exposure. Exposure is the size of a brand’s potential audience in social. Each time a person posts something in social, it is delivered to their list of followers—each instance is called an impression. And those impressions are tallied into that post’s exposure, measuring the post’s potential audience.

Microsoft saw high exposure numbers over the two weeks before the Windows announcement, bringing in 1.6 billion impressions. You can see from the exposure trendline that the brand saw a consistent rise in impressions from September 21 to 27, no doubt due to the media’s increased coverage of—and speculation about—the company’s planned event.

Microsoft then went on to see a huge surge in impressions from two days before the live September 30th event to two days after, bringing in 1.1 billion impressions during that four-day spike alone—a 3.8x lift in average daily exposure from the two weeks prior. This is even more impressive when compared to the exposure other tech leaders’ product announcements garnered—Sony saw a 2x increase in impressions, Samsung a 2.3x increase and Apple saw just a 2.1x lift in impressions. Social was clearly quick to share the news of Microsoft’s Windows 10.

Next let’s take a look at Microsoft’s conversation map from the uberVU via Hootsuite platform, which displays the most-talked about topics in relation to a specific keyword or phrase—in this case Microsoft. On September 15, the company confirmed it would hold an event on September 30 to reveal “what’s next for Windows and the enterprise.” For the two weeks after that date (and before the big unveiling), social buzz for the tech brand revolved around Windows, with social’s money on Windows 9 being revealed.

We now know that Microsoft skipped Windows 9 completely, a topic clearly buzzed about on the day of the announcement, evident on the brand’s conversation map from September 30. You can see that “Windows” and “Windows 10” took over the majority of the social conversations about Microsoft, accounting for 28% of the conversation. Social was also buzzing about the brand’s previous software platform, “Windows 8,” how the new platform would work and the unveil itself with both “live” and “event” appearing.

Not only did the majority of conversations about Microsoft revolve around Windows 10, but the product announcement also caused a large spike in brand mentions and exposure, showing just how much of an impact a product debut can have for a technology brand in social. If Microsoft monitored social data before, after and during the announcement it would better understand the level of success of the launch and also learn important takeaways for planning its next big debut. Perhaps Windows 15?