Apple and Social Media

One of the most profitable companies in the world is also one that is holding out on any form of social media marketing. Despite their popularity Apple Inc. puts very little effort into any social media sites. This is something that does not seem to be changing quickly. Apple continues to promote new releases primarily with traditional forms of media such as TV advertisements. Overall it does not seem to effect the company negatively but it’s difficult to tell how long this will remain the case as the competition is closing in. 

 

 

Apple has no official Twitter account and  the Facebook pages’ only contribution is its 8.2million likes (OK fine that's a lot). The page has literally no other value. It’s about section contains one sentence on the type of company Apple is. Zero photos and Zero wall posts contribute to zero social interaction between the company and its fans.

To give an idea of how little Apple does in terms of social media marketing we can look at the comparison between the launch of the IPhone 4s and the Samsung Galaxy S3. Samsung had an active Twitter account with about 2 million followers. The Galaxy’s Facebook page was updated on a daily basis and had over 10 million likes. So the Galaxy S3’s Facebook page had over 2 million more likes than Apple’s main page. 

Perhaps one explanation to why Apple is holding out on social media is the company’s incredible success. What would motivate Apple to put energy into something that is not essential for the company to do really well? After all the company has had a profit of $41.7 Billion in 2012. That’s more than the combined profit of Microsoft, Ebay, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon which was $34.4 Billion. 

Apple’s large success may not remain for coming years as its competition has been gaining ground. This is evident in several areas but one of the best is the release of the IPad mini last year. Prior to his death, Steve Job’s paid little to attention to tablets smaller than the IPad, he believed that they served very little purpose and were too close to the size of an IPhone. The competition quickly proved this statement to be incorrect however as both Amazon and Samsung quickly released cheaper smaller tablets that took large percentages of the tablet market away from Apple, thus the release of the smaller IPad. 

 For Apple to maintain its status above its competition, it must start actively reaching out to its customers. Social Media has proven very useful for companies in attracting and maintaining customers in the long term. That being said it can also have very large negative effects if it is not used properly. The release of the Apple Maps software would have caused an even greater headache for the company had social media marketing been in place.

  Overall, Apple has a reputation for releasing nearly perfect products. If the company can manage to avoid incidents such as that surrounding the mapping software, social media marketing will do nothing but help the company as long as its not overused. The competition is building for Apple so it will be interesting to see if the company changes strategies in the coming years.