The 'Apple' Approach to Social Media

As everyone knows that social media is the biggest thing in digital marketing right now. Each and every firm is using it to build and connect to their consumer base.

Talking of the figures, Facebook is worth around $100bn, Twitter has more than 140mn active users and brands are busy experimenting with Youtube in anticipation of it being 'the next big thing.'

But among all this, one company stands alone in denial to go hand in hands with social media, and it by the way happens to be the worlds biggest technology company. Yes, you got it right; it is Apple Inc. Its refusal to embrace social media is well documented, but somewhere on its website it still have those 'ridiculous' share buttons. Almost every company has filled its product pages with share icons for Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. But why doesn't Apple have any?

Well actually it does have them but they are hidden in a subtle drop down menu, which look like it contains product options rather than sharing options. The buttons themselves don't have any icons or logos; they are just plain, boring text.

This lack of any social buttons extends to its other software, iTunes has a 'like' button but that's for its music social network Ping, which nobody uses. In the past year it has integrated Twitter into its mobile and Mac operating systems, but while this is an acknowledgment that its customers want social apps, Apple has steered clear of embracing social for it marketing. 

Yet the company clearly sees some value in social media as it operates several Twitter and Facebook accounts for its various sub-brands like the App Store, iTunes and iBooks. But predictably all of the accounts just push out marketing messages and don't make any attempt to respond to consumers.

And this exactly is the main motive of Apple. They don't want the people to talk about their products but their services. They want to emphasise on their services like iTunes and iBooks. This is the reason that they have social media pages related to their services rather than their products.    

--

Regards

Kushagra Sharma

12DCP-057

IMT Ghaziabad-Dubai