Apple & Social Media
Although Apple does not have official Facebook or Twitter account of their own, they still utilize social media marketing in ways that make their marketing less obvious. While promoting your brand and products on your own social media is a great way to make a personal connection with your fans and followers, Apple has taken their own spin on social media.
So what do they do? Apple takes advantage of many social media sponsorships. The most recent example of sponsorship was on September 19th when Joan Rivers, a recently deceased comedian, had a scheduled posting about replacing her old iPhone of four years with the new iPhone 6. This was a result of a sponsorship between Joan and Apple and a never-deleted scheduled social media post.
Although this post could have gone in the wrong direction. Joan Rivers’ fans were able to laugh it off with many jokes, just as Joan herself would have done. What helps Apple so much with incidents like these is that they trend quickly.
An Apple sponsor doesn’t have to be deceased to start a trending post, however. Justin Bieber posted a photo of him using his new iPhone and wrote “Gonna be a good day”. Justin Bieber fans reposted, probably followed behind him to get the same product, and entertainment blogs such as the entertainment section of USA Today took the opportunity to write about this social media post.
As you can start to see, one post by an admired person can trend quickly. Fans will retweet, favorite, comment, and share with their friends while blogs and media outlets share the information with their viewers. Even without official social media accounts, Apple has discovered how to use social media marketing to promote all of their new products such as the iPhone 6.
But first, they had to gain brand loyalty with their fans. This was done by producing excellent customer service and high quality products that everyone quickly began to want. Any business can create this same successful brand loyalty with their customers by providing the best product and service possible and maintaining relationships with their customers via social media, blogs and other outlets.