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Apple has taken a unique approach in comparison to competition with the use of social media to promote their products. Apple likes to leave people curious about new products rather than to display them out on a social media platform. While most brands like to Tweet or write Facebook posts on new products and what makes their brand the best, Apple has seemed to keep very private by only recently creating social media accounts and hardly using them. Apple likes to put on Apple Events where they announce new lines of products every time they come out. Due to the fact these events are so rare it makes the consumers anticipate the release date and by this being one of the only ways to see see new products it receives large amounts of views. Apple does not like to disclose any information before release dates in order to build up anticipation, for the recent iPhone X there was a video on Youtube where a girl was showing the new iPhone for about 45 seconds because her father was one of the engineers for the company. Because that short video got so popular because it was the only information available to the public on the new phone the engineer ended up loosing his job because it went against the strict rules of not giving out any information before release dates. Instead of using social medial to show off products, what Apple is known for is to instead spend that money to purchase ad locations. This is a crucial part of their marketing because instead of someone having to follow their account in order to see their advertisements, when someone is scrolling on Instagram, Twitter or whatever social media account they are on they will be forced to scroll past an Apple ad at some point which hopefully will intrigue them enough to click on the link directing them to Apple's website. The only real social media account that Apple seems to update on a regular basis is Instagram. Their only posts are where they repost others photos that were taken on an iPhone.  These photos are usually really good quality and show real life consumers being able to take amazing photos with one of their products. This is important because when purchasing a new phone the camera quality is sometimes a big aspect to consider and by backing up their products with posting on their official page this sets them apart from other brands. Apple has 2.8 million followers on Instagram where they are the most active and on accounts like Twitter where there are no posts they have 1.5 million and on Facebook where there are also no posts they have brought in over 10 million page likes. These numbers show that the fan base of Apple will be loyal customers even without direct contact that can be found through social media. Apple also has a separate Twitter account that focuses directly on customer support. Consumers are able to tweet to this account their issues where they are usually promptly responded to with either a response for a resolution or asking for more information. This is very important to consumers because they know if there is ever an issue that they will be able to find an immediate resolution instead of having to try and resolve something on their own. Although Apple does not like having social media play a big role in their brand they do stand behind their products and make sure at the end of the day that consumers are happy with their purchases.

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If there's one constant on the consumer tech calendar, it's iPhone reviews day. Happening sometime between the announcement and the release of the latest iPhone, it manifests itself with glowing accounts of the latest Apple smartphone at the top of the page, and irate accusations of Apple-favoring bias in the comments at the bottom. This is as reliable a phenomenon as today's autumnal equinox.

The funny thing is that everyone's right. Readers are right to claim that the iPhone is treated differently from other smartphones, and reviewers are correct in doing so. Apple makes more in quarterly profit than many of its mobile competitors are worth, and the success and failure of its smartphone plays a large role in shaping the fate of multiple related industries. The iPhone is reviewed like a transcendental entity that's more than just the sum of its metal, plastic, and silicon parts, because that's what it is.

The bias is almost everywhere and spreading fast

Consider the scale of Apple's achievement every year. With iPhone hype reaching cosmic proportions every September - and the price never falling - Apple still manages to exceed expectations and maintain some of the highest user satisfaction ratings in the United States. That's in spite of stringing people along without a large-screened phone until last year, and despite continuing to sell an inadequate 16GB entry-level model today. The only explanation for this pattern, short of a mass delusion on a religion-like global scale, is that Apple provides substantial value to its hundreds of millions of satisfied iPhone buyers. Tech consumers are biased in favor of Apple products.

The iPhone is ubiquitous and there are many benefits accruing to its users from this omnipresence. iPhone cases and accessories are an industry unto themselves, which has most recently and impressively been highlighted by the DxO One camera. "Made for iPhone" (MFI) is a mark of pride for peripheral makers, who dive enthusiastically into any new initiative that Apple chooses to embrace. Just witness the ill-fated iPhone game controller movement of 2013: it never had any compelling games that required physical controls, but that didn't deter eager Apple partners from producing a broad range of weird and wonderful MFI gamepads. They did so - and they'd do it again in a heartbeat - because riding the iPhone's coattails to sales is now a proven business strategy. Accessory makers are biased in favor of Apple products.

Riding the iPhone's coattails to sales is a proven business strategy

Even the proprietary Lightning power connector isn't a problem for Apple because you probably have a friend who can lend you one. Or if not, there's always a Starbucks nearby, which will be full of fellow iPhone users. When Apple announced Apple Pay last year, it had the support of Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and most of the big US banks and retailers, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, McDonald's, and Staples. App makers like Groupon and Uber immediately jumped on board as well. The whole business world knew, in advance, that Apple Pay would be the fastest-growing and most quickly adopted mobile payment solution in the oddly long and wonky history of mobile payments. Apple strode into a fragmented, fiercely territorial and competitive field and managed to unite everyone, primarily on the strength of the iPhone's unique history of creating industries and revenue sources where there once were none. Retailers are biased in favor of Apple products.

Nobody wants to miss the next iTunes train

There are other groups who don't necessarily like what Apple is doing, but are forced to dance to its tune. Among them are all the web publishers sweating the contentious enabling of ad blockers in iOS 9. Apple's decision could undermine the traditional business model for websites - who see iOS users as one of their highest-value demographics to present ads to - and serves as a push factor to nudge publishers toward making their content available on the new Apple News app. Wired is already doing short-term exclusives of some articles on Apple News, and other sites are tweeting out the Apple News versions of their stories. Music labels know these dynamics well, having ridden the iTunes transition to digital distribution, and now cable channels like HBO are just the latest to conjoin their fates to Apple's seemingly unerring rise to greater power and profitability. Content producers are biased in favor of Apple products.

There were mobile apps before Apple's App Store came along, but they were mostly afterthought additions rather than compelling reasons to buy a new device. Today, the foremost reason to buy an iPad over an Android tablet or an iPhone over any other smartphone is precisely the app ecosystem of Apple's iOS platform. And the foremost reason to develop new software for that platform is the same thing keeping every other business interested: iPhone owners are a large and growing population of consumers willing to spend money on their phones. App developers may chafe under Apple's stringent App Store regulations, but they consistently find iOS to be the most lucrative mobile platform available. They, too, are biased in favor of Apple products.

The next time you read an iPhone review, keep all these biases in mind. The iPhone is the favored tech product of a vast swathe of our planet's population, serving both utilitarian and aspirational purposes. It is the catalyst for and sole supporter of entire ancillary industries. It is the nexus where communication and commerce blend most easily, and it is the surest harbinger of the future that is to come. Any review that doesn't account for all of these factors might be considered technically objective and unbiased, but it would also be frightfully uninformative. Assessing an iPhone against a blank canvas is akin to describing Notre Dame or Sagrada Família as old, large, religious buildings.

Apple bias exists in reviews because it exists in the real world. The company's track record with the iPhone and other products like it - characterized by a great deal more right decisions than wrong ones - encourages optimism about its riskier new ventures today. The Apple Watch is credited with greater potential than the Samsung Gear S2 because of the two companies' different histories. The Huawei Mate S has Force Touch similar to the iPhone 6S, but only Apple's phone is expected to turn that technology into a transformative new mode of interaction.

That's justified bias. That's relevant context derived from history and experience. Without it, we'd be reciting facts and figures, but no meaning. Megabytes and millimeters matter only after they've been passed through the prism of human judgment, and we shouldn't pretend that it can, or should, ever be unbiased.

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The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.

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An apple devotee awaits the latest product. Maybe the tech giant's relationship with its customers is so close that it doesn't need community. Photo by Mike Baker via Flickr.

If you've ever mentioned @apple in a tweet, you might be surprised to find out that nobody at Apple was listening. In fact, the @apple account on Twitter still shows the default egg image for its avatar, along with two fat goose eggs in its stats: zero tweets, and zero following. Over at Facebook, the page for "Apple Inc." is a ghost town, with no company activity since its creation in July, 2011. It has over 10 million likes. Based on the most recent statistics, that represents 83 million hours per month of Facebook user time that Apple has decided it wants no part of.

Apple is not only abstaining from a major marketing opportunity, but turning its back on an increasingly vital channel for customer feedback and support. Organizations that intuitively get social media are those that see the value of listening to their customers and partners-their community-and let those voices inform business decisions. Apple doesn't work that way. The company's philosophy toward customer input was probably best summed up by Steve Jobs himself. In 1998, he told Business Week, "A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

It's hard to argue with a business that has revolutionized multiple industries with a string of category-defining products, but Apple's indifference to social media is puzzling.

To be fair, Apple isn't entirely absent from the two biggest social platforms. Some of its product lines have accounts. iTunes, for instance, is on Facebook and Twitter, both of which are used to promote featured artists and iTunes-sponsored events. The iTunes Facebook page is particularly impressive, with 31 million likes and a timeline packed with compelling visual content. But the success of iTunes on Facebook and Twitter is ironic, since Apple once tried (and failed) to create its own social network, Ping, inside iTunes itself.

Apple launched Ping as a social network for music in September 2010. Built into the iTunes platform, it allowed users to follow artists, share music recommendations with their friends, and see what their friends were listening to. Steve Jobs half-jokingly described it as "sort of like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes." And if that had been literally true, Ping might still be around.

Apple is known for creating a finely tuned user experience inside a "walled garden" of integrated hardware and software. But the walls that Apple built around Ping were simply too high. The network was only accessible within iTunes, and was missing an integration with Facebook or Twitter. Apple came close to partnering with Facebook for Ping, but balked at what it described as Facebook's "onerous terms". Without access to Facebook's social graph, Ping users had trouble finding friends or confirming anyone's identity. The social network that was all about music discovery was undermined by poor social discovery.

After two years of lacklustre engagement, Ping was taken off life support in September 2012 and replaced in iTunes with Facebook and Twitter integrations. By this time Apple had also incorporated Facebook and Twitter into the native apps of iOS, its mobile operating system. The company had learned the most important rule of social media: play nice with others.

Social media is now woven into the Apple user experience, but it's not yet woven into how the company does business. It demands openness and transparency, which is antithetical to Apple's corporate culture.

Apple is famously secretive, both internally and externally, and has benefited enormously from this approach: it keeps its upcoming products hidden from its competitors, and when it announces a new product, the company has absolute control over the message. Steve Jobs' keynote presentations (and now Tim Cook's) are always hotly anticipated because (with few exceptions) nobody really knows what's going to happen.

Customers and reporters aren't the only people waiting on bated breath for the big reveal. In fact, the vast majority of Apple's own employees hear about the latest Apple product at the same time the rest of us do. Journalist Adam Lashinsky describes Apple as the "ultimate need-to-know culture." Employees are only aware of the projects in which they're directly engaged, or rather, small slices of those projects that pertain to their individual responsibilities. In Inside Apple, Lashinsky explains how Apple's secretiveness manifests itself in the physical workspace: "Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building. New walls are quickly erected. Doors are added and new security protocols put into place."

With so many physical and virtual barriers to information sharing, how is Apple able to create such innovative products? Rather than involving entire departments in the creative process, the company brings together teams of experts to collaborate on a more intimate scale. These groups are hived off from the rest of the company (and customers) and intended to operate much like start-ups. In isolation, Apple's world-class designers and engineers are free to dream up new ideas without being distracted by external input. Put people inside a box and they'll think outside the box-or so the thinking goes.

What's missing from this picture is any spontaneous discussion at the water cooler, or new ideas coming together on the back of a napkin in the cafeteria. At Quora, a former product manager named Simon Woodside admitted, "Having all these secrets was difficult from my perspective. I couldn't really engage in idle banter with my colleagues for fear of slipping something out." This secretiveness makes it impossible for Apple to collaborate internally on a massive scale with a social media platform like Yammer or IBM Connections.

Perhaps Apple is anti-social. But maybe that's because it can afford to be.

In 2013, Apple supplanted hyper-social Coca-Cola as the most valuable brand in the world in Interbrand's Global Brand Rankings. Interbrand pegs the value of Apple's brand at $98 billion, citing its "legions of adoring fans." Anyone who's ever used an Apple product or stepped inside an Apple store can tell you how the company earned those fans. Apple knows its customers. It's a loyal, passionate one-to-one relationship the company has invested decades and billions in cultivating. And who needs community when you've got a relationship like that, right?
Need help making your business more social? Try HootSuite now for free.

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If you've ever mentioned @apple in a tweet, you might be surprised to find out that nobody at Apple was listening. In fact, the @apple account on Twitter still shows the default egg image for its avatar, along with two fat goose eggs in its stats: zero tweets, and zero following.

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Apple Music. 3,519,600 likes · 67,878 talking about this. Millions of songs. Zero ads. No commitment.

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I cover technology with an emphasis on social and digital media.

After Apple unveils the iPhone 6 today, you'll hear about it just about everywhere -- on TV, on news websites, and relentlessly on Twitter and Facebook. Just about the only places you won't hear about it are on Apple's official corporate social media channels, because they basically don't exist.

More than a decade after the creation of Facebook and more than eight years after the founding of Twitter, the world's most valuable company and second-most valuable brand is an increasingly lonely social media holdout. Though it maintains accounts for iTunes and the App Store, Apple doesn't have an official corporate Facebook page or Twitter profile. Nor does it have one on Instagram, Google+ or Pinterest. The CIA may feel like it can't afford not to tweet, but Apple is a little more careful with its communications, thank you very much.

But that may be changing. Following the hiring of Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts last October, the consumer electronics giant has been tentatively -- very tentatively -- moving toward having a more active social presence, according to a person familiarized with the company's thinking. In recent months, Ahrendts has brought on several key people, including global digital strategy head John Agnew and digital marketing director Musa Tariq. Both came from Nike, where Tariq was head of social media and community.

According to this person, Apple sees itself as being in transition from its old communications model, where a "single narrator" -- aka the late Steve Jobs -- articulated a "singular narrative" at a time and place of his choosing, to a new model where the company speaks in multiple voices and participates in two-way discussions with its consumers and fans.

It's a shift pretty much every other other big consumer-facing corporation on earth has already made, but it's causing more than the usual amount of anxiety at Apple, not just because of the legacy of extreme message control, but because of its ethos of perfection in all things. If a year or two ago Apple was still ambivalent about whether it needed to be on social media at all, now it's moved onto the question of how it can be as deft at Facebook and Twitter as it has long been at traditional advertising. And Apple doesn't want to dive into those platforms headlong until it has figured out how to do that, even if that goes against the trial-and-error ethos of the medium.

But there have been experiments. In May, Apple debuted a new ad campaign for the iPhone 5c on Tumblr, although the campaign has since been taken down. And then there's the " Your Verse" campaign for the iPad, the individual components of which were "co-created" with users. Aside from LinkedIn, which the company uses primarily for recruiting, YouTube, where the "Your Verse" videos live, is the one big social platform Apple has embraced wholeheartedly at a corporate level. It has more than 2 million subscribers there. While a wholesale migration onto Facebook and Twitter may be months or years away, expect to see more experiments like "Your Verse" in the near future.

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Is Apple Finally Getting Over Its Allergy To Social Media?

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VideoAfter Apple unveils the iPhone 6 today, you'll hear about it just about everywhere -- on TV, on news websites, and relentlessly on Twitter and Facebook. Just about the only places you won't hear about it are on Apple's official corporate social media channels, because they basically don't exist.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't have a high opinion of platform-owning social media and advertising companies, most of which are now embroiled in an ongoing controversy about Russian interference in the 2016 US election. Cook, in an interview with Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News this evening, said the big issue isn't the advertisements targeting groups and individuals, but the overall nature of social media as a tool for misinformation and manipulation.

"I don't believe the big issue are ads from foreign governments. I believe that's like .1 percent of the issue," Cook says. "The bigger issue is that some of these tools are used to divide people, to manipulate people, to get fake news to people in broad numbers so as to influence their thinking. This to me is the No. 1 through 10 issue."

Following a second day of Capitol Hill testimony from members of Google, Facebook, and Twitter, Congress has taken an increasingly aggressive and adversarial stance on Silicon Valley's ability to reign in the abuse of its products and keep them free of bad actors and foreign governments. In the past couple of months, it's been revealed that Russia-linked advertising was prevalent in Google search and YouTube ads, as well on both Facebook and Twitter's ad platforms. And in the past week, following the disclosure of new reports from all three tech companies, we know these ads reached many more users than previously thought, in some cases having more than 10 times the initial reported impact.

Cook addressed the congressional hearings, saying that the social media companies have "learned along the way a lot," and that "we'll probably learn more in those hearings as to the particulars." He went on to say that just as all New York companies aren't all the same - and all media companies aren't the same - well, all technology companies aren't the same, either. They have different values, different principles, different business models."

Those business models include compiling volumes of user data, something that Cook reasserted isn't something that Apple is interested in. "We take a very pro-privacy view," Cook says. "Apple doesn't know what the content of your messages are. We encrypt FaceTime end to end. We don't know what you're saying." Holt brought up that the company's upcoming iPhone X raises privacy concerns with its FaceID system. Cook explained that the facial recognition data is stored on the phone and encrypted, and that "Apple doesn't have that: your device has that."

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Apple CEO Tim Cook says social media is being used to manipulate and divide us

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Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't have a high opinion of platform-owning social media and advertising companies, most of which are now embroiled in an ongoing controversy about Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

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"An ipod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iphone! Today Apple is going to re-invent the phone. And here it is."

And with this statement Steve Jobs started a revolution in the design of phones as we knew them. This innovation led to popularity of the device as well as the brand and today, for Apple, there is no turning back. Apple is "The Apple" and its products are "The Products" when it comes to popularity, fan base, craze bordering to fanatism.

But no-one can stay at the pinnacle indisputably for too long. Tech age is the competitive age and every brand is facing stiff competition from its peers. So is the case with Apple, and Samsung is determined to illustriousness and capture a fair share of market by dethroning Apple.

But is Samsung really succeeding in doing it?

As is the known fact, Apple is the dominating brand in the US market and Samsung holds the lead globally. This is the factor which is the reason of some kind of distinction between the Content Marketing Strategies of both the brands.
1. Presence in Social Media
Apple has a peculiar strategy when it comes to brand standing and promotion. It is not present on any Social Media channel. It does not do any blogging. It does not even do any web series or promotion. Their only presence is through TVCs.

On the other hand, Samsung is present on an array of Social Media channels. The TVCs have celebrities and major faces starring. Samsung also partners with major apps to leverage itself.

This stark difference between the promotions of the brands is because Apple is considered by itself and others as a producer of only extremely competent and accomplished in its endeavor. While Samsung is still trying to prove its relevance in the current tech culture. Some might say that Apple is bit over-confident in their approach but having a level of mystery around the product often works in its favor as this generates customer intrigue. But then again, having some kind of connection with public has never hurt a brand so far.
2. Engagement Activity
Apple launched "Your Verse" to highlight how different people use ipad to do things amazingly and differently. This campaign launched in 2014 became more of a story of people using ipad rather than the product itself.

Samsung launched its own campaign, "Incredible Art Piece". This campaign was expressly designed to promote Galaxy Note pen stylus. This campaign itself became a Guinness World Book entry with the record of maximum number of artists working on a single art work. Common people were also invited to participate by submitting digital drawings made using stylus on their Galaxy Note. The campaign had its own dedicated microsite and Facebook app.

For engaging people with the iphone 6, Apple unveiled a gallery full of photos taken with iphone 6. It was around the same time Samsung launched Galaxy S6 and focused, among many things, on its camera.

These examples clearly highlight the basic difference in the approach of both the brands. While Apple's epicenter lies around how people use its products to make a difference to their life, Samsung accentuates and publicizes its features.

In this context both seem a winner as the underlying motive of the whole strategy, that is Customer Engagement, is achieved.
3. Continuous Visibility and Consistency
As both the brands depend heavily on technological contrivance, there is an issue of consistency with the both of them. Apple's 1984 superbowl commercial was a good effort but it is very different from today's sleek and straightforward approach.

Similarly, there have also revamped DigiAll Mag to Samsung Vision App. But the basic problem with Samsung is its presence on every single Social Media Channel under different aliases. There is Samsung TV, Samsung Mobile, Samsung USA, etc. This leads to an overall decrease in number of followers. Sure, having dedicated accounts for every product is great. But it also results in chaos which is an unwanted outcome of Samsung's strategy.

While, in case of Apple, there is just one Apple.
4. Entertainment Value
For a brand to be well received by people and drive maximum engagement rate, there needs to be some entertainment quotient.

And Samsung clearly believes in this which is why they are such big entertainers. The brand's featuring and central presence during various events has been felt and seen clearly. Famous Oscar selfie by Ellen Degeneres was taken through a Samsung phone only. Samsung clearly adores the power of a star, a celebrity. It partnered with famous music icon JayZ for his Magna Carta Holy Grail album. It even teamed with Usher, another music celebrity for his music piece "Looking for Myself". Apple too roped in "Beats" by Dre but it was too late and felt more like a mimic move.

Samsung, on the other hand continues to ace in this regard with highly relevant campaigns. For #OverToYou , Samsung gave Galaxy S4 to 12 influential bloggers and YouTube influencers and persuaded them to create content. This encouraged people as hearing from a review expert and not a company's spokesperson is bound to leave more impact on buyer's decision.

Samsung even created a microsite named Time Machine in association with checkin platform Foursquare. Through this microsite, checkins could be converted to infographics that can be shared across various other social networks. Samsung is also the 1 st brand to go for live stream through Snapchat and it broadcasted from American Music Awards.

On the other hand, Apple has done none such effort and relies completely on its brand power which was mocked by Samsung in a series of commercials under the campaign "Next Big Thing". For this daring gimmick, Samsung was even sued by Apple but still the fruit of knowledge could do nothing to stop the fellow competitor.

All this has showed time and again that both the competitors have a distinctly varied approach when it comes to brand promotion. One has everything from Star Power to huge availability on social media while the other one has a vision and brand power.

Which one do you think is the king of Marketing?

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Samsung VS Apple - Who is doing it right?

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"An ipod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iphone! Today Apple is going to re-invent the phone. And here it is." And with this statement Steve Jobs started a revolution in the design of phones as we knew them.

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Apple has become one of the most world-renowned names in consumer electronics, cloud-based services and computer technology. Until recently the company had something of an aversion towards using Social Media for business. What is so interesting about their current Social Media strategy is that, in terms of contemporary Social Media Marketing, it just shouldn't work...

Since its creation back in 1976, Apple Inc. has become one of the world's leading technological innovators. Through incredible highs and astronomical lows, the company has constantly proven time and time again that they are unwilling to follow the status quo. That very reluctance to tread the same path as other successful business has been transferred directly to their Social Media channels.

The truth is that Apple are able to do, or rather not do, something completely different on Social Media purely because of what an extensive and influential corporation they are. Due to their substantial and fanatical consumer base and an astronomically large pile of partners who want to use and market across their services such as app developers, Apple use Social Media in their own way and only to their own benefit.

Very little, if any, central Social Media

When exploring how Apple use Social Media, one of the most obvious and oddest things is that they have very little in the way of central accounts. This seems to be the case across the most prominent Social Networking sites; @Apple lays completely unused on Twitter and on Facebook all you can find is an unofficial page for an "electronic equipment service" which has managed to amass over 9 million likes without any visible Social Media strategy whatsoever. This has been the case for quite some time. Apple refuse to turn their heads towards Social Networking and harness this considerably lucrative marketing opportunity at an official level.

In more recent years Apple have begun to integrate Social Media into their Digital Marketing strategy with specific services in mind - at least where their partners are concerned. For example, an active Twitter profile for their App Store has been running since September 2009, with a primary objective of marketing new apps and features; a feature offered to developers of apps running on IOS. In the same vein, similar profiles are run for Apple Music.

Twitter as a customer service tool

One aspect of Social Networking that Apple have been more willing to tap into is customer service. As an immediate communication medium that provides complete transparency, Social Media provides the perfect platform for customer service. Their Apple Support Twitter profile allows them to provide "tips and tricks when you need it most."

Why Apple can get away with what others can't

Apple Inc. is able to have this approach to Social Media because of the sheer size of their corporation. Unlike other companies that need Social Media to promote the launch of new products, engage with customers and make announcements, Apple's needs are covered by other media. Because they simply don't need to undertake a contemporary Social Media strategy, they have the freedom to make their own rules.

And also because they are Apple and that's what they do.

What can we learn from how Apple uses Social Media

It's generally not recommended for businesses to take too much from the way that Apple Inc. run (or rather, don't run) their Social Media channels. But perhaps it pays heed to the fact that not all Social Networks are right for each business. Companies should be willing to invest time and energy into identify which networks are the ones that their customers hang out on, and devote a significant proportion of their Digital Marketing Strategy to those.

Mark is our resident content marketing manager and editor of our expert blog on social media and digital content marketing mastery. Alongside having a passion for enacting positive social change through media, Mark loves food, travel and art.

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How do Apple use Social Media? - Giraffe Social Media

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Apple has become one of the most world-renowned names in consumer electronics, cloud-based services and computer technology. Until recently the company had something of an aversion towards using Social Media for business. What is so interesting about their current Social Media strategy is that, in terms of contemporary Social Media Marketing, it just shouldn't ...

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AP

2016 was the year that Apple joined the rest of the world and embraced social media.

Earlier this year, Apple launched an official Twitter account to promote the launch of the iPhone 7. And Apple has also been quietly running an official verified Facebook page for months as well, the company confirmed.

Apple has been running music-related social accounts for years, but its willingness to create official accounts for Apple itself is a relatively new development.

But both accounts show exactly zero activity. None. If you visit Apple's official Twitter page, you'll see that it has never tweeted. Apple's Facebook page has a bare wall as well.

Instead, Apple uses the accounts to buy advertisements for its latest products, like the iPhone 7, MacBook Pro, and Apple Watch. These posts are "dark social," which means that Apple is taking advantage of advertising tools to promote posts that don't show up on the main account's feed.

This approach memorably resulted in promoted tweets revealing the iPhone 7 and its key features before Apple did it itself at one of its launch events.

Here's an ad we saw earlier this week:

Facebook/Apple

This approach, while logical, seems to miss social media's particular advantages.

It's about authenticity

Darren Weaver

It's not as if Apple has nothing good to share on social media.

Before the iPhone launch event, some well-connected observers thought that Apple might even want to live-tweet its own event. It didn't, although it did end up spoiling its own launch.

But there's lots of information Apple should communicate outside product reviews.

As more people live in the Apple ecosystem, with their phone, computer, and watch all tied together with Apple services, there's even more of a need for the company to communicate with its customers. These folks might pay for an iPhone every two or three years, but they live with Apple every day.

Here's one example. There's been a nasty iCloud calendar spam problem going around. Chinese spammers figured out that if they send an unsolicited iCloud calendar invitation to nonexistent events, they can get around spam filters and Apple users will see the invite (to discount Ray-Bans or other fraudulent designer goods) on their phone.

If you look at Apple's site, it doesn't address the problem. But the company has actually apologized for the problem and said that they're working on a fix - in a statement to an Apple-enthusiast site.

There are millions of Apple customers who don't check Apple blogs obsessively. They could completely miss this official communication about a problem that could be affecting them.

Wouldn't this be a great time for a Facebook post?

Similarly, Apple has a Twitter account that's designed to help Apple users with problems they're having. But Apple Support never announced that there was a fix for the sudden iPhone shutdown bug that's been going around, or the iPhone 6 "touch disease" issue. Those announcements were buried on Apple's official website.

Facebook

Sure, there are reasons why Apple might not want to completely embrace social media. It's not the company's style. Brands rarely do good tweets. Trolls or people with an axe to grind could invade the comments as they already have on Apple's profile picture. Plus, social media with an audience of tens of millions can get weird. Just ask Mark Zuckerberg.

But when readers contact me after I write stories about Apple product flaws, one of the recurring themes is that they had wished Apple had communicated with them instead of forcing them to learn in a news story. Apple already has the platform to stay in contact with its most engaged customers. It just has to tell the world what's on its mind.

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Apple needs to hire some teens to help with its social media strategy

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2016 was the year that Apple joined the rest of the world and embraced social media. Earlier this year, Apple launched an official Twitter account to promote the launch of the iPhone 7. And Apple has also been quietly running an official verified Facebook page for months as well, the company confirmed.

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Apple has repeatedly shunned the status quo and routinely defied the odds of success throughout its nearly 40-year history. If there's one thing Apple proves time and again it's that it doesn't have to - nor does it want to - follow the unwritten rules of business, technology or marketing.

While Apple generally distances itself from social media on a corporate level, the company's CEO Tim Cook and many of its flagship services, including the App Store, Apple Music and Beats1, take a more active and meaningful approach to the medium. The pervasive strength of Apple's brand means it can break rules other marketers must follow on Twitter, Facebook and other networks without consequence.

Why is there no @Apple Twitter account?

Apple's minimalist presence on social media, such as its unwillingness to use the @Apple Twitter handle, seems to bear no impact on the company and its generally positive perception among customers. "Apple would be a terrible example to follow [on social] for most brands," says David Berkowitz, CMO at creative and technology agency MRY.

When Apple embraces platforms like Twitter on the periphery, however, it can amass a huge audience with relatively little effort. Cook, for example, has collected 1.44 million followers since joining Twitter two years ago. Apple Music has 7.5 million followers, the App Store is approaching 4 million, iTunes has 806,000, and the recently launched Beats1 account already has more than 314,000 followers on Twitter.

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The company is even more difficult to find on Facebook, but an unofficial page for an Apple Inc. "computer store" has more than 24.5 million "Likes." The company doesn't appear to have any sort of official, overarching Facebook page, yet that unendorsed page has 5.5 million more Likes than Google's official (and highly active) page. The new official Facebook page for Apple Music also has more than 1 million Likes.

Marketers pay top dollar for audiences on Facebook at that scale, but Apple apparently couldn't care less, despite the untapped and highly coveted opportunity.

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"Apple doesn't need to, nor does it have a history of, communicating updates to either [Twitter or Facebook]," says Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter Group. "Having a Twitter account, if you want it to mean something, takes care, intention and thoughtfulness. At the moment, all of Apple's needs, and more importantly its customers and stakeholders on Twitter, are covered."

Apple's unique approach to social not recommended

It's generally a bad idea for brands to follow Apple's approach to social media, thereby lacking a centrally managed brand presence, according to Berkowitz. Many companies cherish, and in some cases require, the reach that social media provides, to promote new products or minimize damage if something goes wrong. But not every brand needs to be active on every major social network. "Brands should actually be more selective right now given that major social media channels typically require paid media budgets to amplify messages to a wide audience."

Apple is a unique case, according to Berkowitz. "There's arguably no other brand in the world with that much love, and practical ownership of the mainstream media to the extent that it can always rely on the press to spread the word for them."

However, Berkowitz also says it's hardly a best practice for Apple to ignore, even neglect, its loyal user base. Considering the strength of Apple's product-focused channels on Twitter, however, it's clear the company employs "at least a competent if not very talented bunch of social media managers."

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The company launched its first social media ad campaign just 17 months ago and placed its bets on Tumblr instead of Facebook or Twitter. Apple also hired Musa Tariq away from Nike last summer to become its head digital marketing director. It hasn't exactly reversed course on social media, but it is striking a slightly different stance these days - or at least it's been more active, even if the effort is disjointed. For example, the new Apple Music Tumblr page is consistently updated with details on upcoming features, information about popular artists and other modes of musical discovery. Cook also recently joined Chinese social network Weibo to promote some of the company's latest moves in that country.

The rules don't always apply to Apple, and social media is no different. However, the nuances of social media mean companies that resist the road most traveled can ultimately succeed, and Apple proves this. Solis says that simply launching a branded account on social media to talk to potential customers also isn't always enough. "Think about the majority of branded accounts out there, who's running them, the voice and the person, the governance (or lack thereof) of its engagement. It's an art, it's not a mandate."

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Inside Apple's odd, yet effective, social media strategy

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Apple has repeatedly shunned the status quo and routinely defied the odds of success throughout its nearly 40-year history. If there's one thing Apple proves time and again it's that it doesn't have to - nor does it want to - follow the unwritten rules of business, technology or marketing.

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In its first 24 hours, the account has accumulated more than 121,000 followers. Apple is also keeping its promise to use the account to help people: @AppleSupport has tweeted over 2,200 times to Twitter users who have reached out with questions.
So why is the company suddenly putting more resources into its social media presence?
Apple's move is in effect an acknowledgement of the growing importance of customer experience (CX). As the Business Insider points out, the overwhelming response that the new account got shows that there was a "pent-up demand for Apple Support on social media."

Thrilled to have another wonderful support option for customers. https://t.co/CTjmyMjuci

- Angela Ahrendts (@AngelaAhrendts) March 3, 2016

The company already has a robust customer support system, but its @AppleSupport Twitter account shows it recognizes the need to be more available to customers. In fact, the company's head of retail, Angela Ahrendts, that the new Twitter account is "another wonderful support option for customers." For his part, Cook has developed a reputation for listening to customer complaints and being customer-centric.

Of course, Apple isn't the only to the research firm revenue-driven company focusing on customer experience . According Gartner, 89 percent of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of CX this year.

Experts predict that customer experience will only grow in importance in the next decade. Given its ubiquity, social media is expected to have a major role in shaping CX, in particular when it comes to resolving customer complaints. In his recently released book, Hug Your Haters , marketing expert Jay Baer revealed that 47 percent of people who complain on social media expect a response from brands. And, as he explored in a recent Vision Critical webinar , addressing customer complaints provides a massive opportunity for brands.
"For the most part, social media complaints represent the voice of the minority of your customers."
At the same time, however, Apple and other big brands should be careful in how they interpret what they hear on social media. While it's important to answer online complaints, these grievances aren't necessarily a good source of customer insight.

A Vision Critical study found that 30 percent of social media users account for 90 percent of social media updates . For the most part, social media complaints represent the voice of the minority of your customers. To build an effective end-to-end customer experience, companies like Apple need to validate what they hear on social media with other customer intelligence tools and gain a more balanced and holistic picture of their customer base.

Apple is renowned for its cult-like following. For the third year is a row, it's the . Its latest social media move will likely inspire other companies to follow suit. But more importantly, most valuable brand in the world this move is a big win for CX advocates. It reaffirms the importance of listening to your customers and putting them at the center of your business.

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Apple's latest social media move focuses on customer experience

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In its first 24 hours, the account has accumulated more than 121,000 followers. Apple is also keeping its promise to use the account to help people: @AppleSupport has tweeted over 2,200 times to Twitter users who have reached out with questions. So why is the company suddenly putting more resources into its social media presence?

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Social Media has a bigger impact on businesses today than ever before. If we take a look into the past we can see the differences between social media then and now. I am going to take a look into the company Apple and see how social media has affected them as a company and brand. Has it had a good impact? or a bad impact on them as a brand? How has social media influenced the products apple has come out with? Do they listen to their customers via social media? Do they have a big social following compared to their competitors? These are all questions I will begin to answer.