Apple and social media? Impossible mission???
Apple, contrary to the majority of the brands today, has decided to ignore social media involvement for a long time. However, this can change in the near future as social media takes more and more place in the marketing strategies of companies. Indeed, until today, Apple is still reserved on the front of making apparition on social networking. Even though sub branches of Apple like apple store have a twitter and facebook account, the brand itself is still silent about making one. On the other hand, Apple’s rival like Samsung are really eager to show themselves in social media.
That is the reason why we can ask ourselves why the company doesn’t profit from these resources that can be used for a large scale advertisement nowadays.
Firstly, Apple likes to differentiate itself from its competitors by doing things their way. It is the case of their conference which are almost theatralized when they present a new product. That is why, for them, it is normal to make an original approach concerning social media too. By not having a participation in social media, they are able to create a buzz which can be an asset for their marketing strategy. As a result, the returns from the public opinion are generally positive: as they answers customers questions in person, they are able to give a face to their brand which would not be present otherwise. In short, Apple use their account only to pass some marketing messages and not to respond to questions from customers.
However, social media as it grow today is becoming increasingly important. thus, it seems that the company will not be able to ignore this much longer. Indeed, Apple has recently hire new executives in this way. Even though Apple likes to have interaction in store with their clients for question, it is not a surprise that social media is still the easiest and thus the system which is most used for contacting their favorite brands. From this information, we can still conclude that Apple is also still lacking compared to their competitors on the social networking side of the business.
Nevertheless, the executives of the company have a Twitter account where they can be reached. Thus Apple is not completely uninvolved in the social media wave that appeared and is still growing. As we said previously, this approach allows the brand to have a positive feedback of their customers who find that it gives to the image of the company an original point of view. Moreover, a involvement of new executives like the former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts can be seen as a key element to the rapprochement of Apple with social media.
In conclusion, Apple possesses a specific strategy for social media as they don’t use it generally for customer service and thus have a limited presence in this field even though the company specialized in new technologies. On the other hand, they still count on it for advertisement of their products. This allow the brand to create the buzz for a company which likes to differentiate itself in everything. However, before the growing influence that the likes of Facebook and Twitter have, even Apple seems to not be able to ignore it completely any longer.
This post was created as part of the Global Luxury Management Program at the NC State Poole School of Management. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
