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.

Ever heard of Web 2.0?

No one has ever downloaded a new version of the internet have they? The answer should be quite obviously no. The term simply gives name to the idea that the internet has changed quite a bit from the 1990's. During this time web pages were primarily passive in that users solely had the ability to view content and not interact with it. This changed around the beginning of the 21st century. Both Adobe and Java are the primary developers of the technology that was required to make the internet a two way street. This allowed the level of social interaction that we have from the internet today. It is impossible to measure the effects this has had on us but one could confidently say that this allowed our society to reshape the way we educate, interact and view ourselves.

Layout of a class focused on online interaction

The effects these changes have had on education may in fact have happened so quickly that we are unable to determine the side effects and socially change accordingly. Lack of interest and focus in more traditional classroom settings have been blamed on this development, although it is hard to establish a direct link. Although curriculum's may need serious overhaul with an increased online classroom presence it can easily be argued that the positives out way the benefits. The additional more timely feedback students can receive is invaluable. In addition students that were limited to social interaction based on geographical location no longer have that restraint. Research and interaction on an international level are areas that many schools, particularly those of higher education are incorporating into their programs.

Illustration of the concepts included within the term "Web 2.0"

The level of social interaction that takes place has caused the creation of a cyber persona for most people who have access. This typically takes form in Facebook accounts or other social networking sites. Once again this is something that we many not have fully adjusted to socially as many controversies have been talked about in the media, particularly those involving cyber bullying. 

Online social interaction is something that we have become used to yet don't quite fully understand. Regardless, this new form of engagement in the form of blogs, posts, uploaded photos and videos and of course Tweets redefines community and our entire form of expression.

Elections and Twitter

This election is the first presidential election that we can see both candidates using Twitter somewhat effectively. In 2008 we saw what happens when only one party reaches out to the millions of readers on Twitter. This time around both parties are constantly bombarding their respective followers with updates on the campaigns in addition to their views of the opposing party. What is being said you ask? Well not much. The tweets that are released by both campaigns offer little to no extra insight into their views or policies.  In fact many of the posts are clearly excerpts from speeches.  Examples of families struggling to put food on the table and workers getting laid off coupled with non specific attacks on the opposing party are all to common and say little to nothing about the candidate himself. One area that Twitter does shine is the ability to quickly spread a personal message that may be time sensitive. This would be highly effective when used for damage control. Recently one of the candidates placed himself in a hole and spent the following 24 hour news cycle trying to dig himself out of it. Not one word of this problem was even mentioned on his Twitter account. Perhaps this has to do with the permanent nature of tweets or perhaps he felt that less was more in this particular case. Either way it seems that both parties are so nervous about crossing a line that they have actually decreased the effectiveness of a tool like Twitter by not offering any additional insight into their campaigns'. From now until November it will be very interesting to see if this changes with the increasing pressure.