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Apple doesn't really do social media, so why should other brands?
In 2013 there were manifold stories of brands trying to engage on social media and failing to understand their audience or even that channel. Perhaps Apple is best to remain aloof and let their customers do the social talking.
It’s not easy to find Apple on Twitter or Facebook and while the company has a very active page on LinkedIn it is used for little other than job advertisements at the company.
Moreover, its presence on Google + is as a 70,000-strong community moderated by others. Reading it feels like using an iPhone that runs on Android, another twain that should never meet.
Products such as iTunes have Twitter pages but the company has never been a fan. Search for ‘Apple’ on Facebook and something very strange happens at www.facebook.com/apple; it seems to the the page of a Chinese woman. It’s only when the search box reverts to Apple Inc. that its page begrudgingly appears.
Apple may be a special case because of the loyalty it engenders in its users. Even in the digital matrix that we now live, there is no better marketing than word of mouth and no better selling-point than being cool and funky. Love it or hate it, Apple remains a class apart.
But looking back on 2013 and seeing the huge mistakes by so-called brands trying to make social media work for them, perhaps other brands should follow Apple’s example and stay clear from infuriating the anti-audience. This year there have been some stunning examples of brands failing to understand the channel.
In September, Mark Leiser, an EasyJet passenger, was prevented from boarding his flight because he had posted (very mild) criticism about the airline on Twitter. Leiser, a law lecturer at Strathclyde University, was eventually allowed to board the flight when the airline found out what he did for a living, but it did nothing for EasyJet’s reputation. The outcry on social media itself and the (slower) coverage in the printed and electronic media made it look foolish.
But at least EasyJet were monitoring social media and their different business elements were aligned. Luton Airport, where many EasyJets take off and land, was even more remiss.
It posted a ‘light-hearted’ Facebook post with a picture of a plane crash to illustrate how it would always look after their passengers in the snow. Unfortunately, the picture they chose was a crash that had caused the death of a six-year-old child. Plane crash or train wreck? Either phrase would apply.
A simple search of ‘social media fails 2013’ unearths innumerable examples of brands missing the point of this medium. Another such example is Tesco in January at the height of the the horse meat scandal when the following pre-scheduled Tweet could not have been more inappropriate.
“It’s sleepy time so we’re off to hit the hay!”.
Hit the hay, indeed, as many horses are wont to do, but surely these farcical examples have to be improved on. Consequently, social media monitoring by specialised data companies is very big business.
One of the early pioneers, Radian6 was acquired in 2011 by Salesforce for a whopping $326 million, a price tag that has not put off other companies from buying into the space.
While Apple may prefer to keep away from social media, it is certainly keeping close to watching what is happening on Twitter. Earlier this month it bought social media analytics company Topsy Labs for more than $200 million, a company that uses Twitter data to analyse user sentiment about brands, presumably Apple being one of these brands.
Another notable company in this space is Brighton-based Brandwatch, a company that offers a subscription-based app that allows customers to track social media conversations about brands as well as on blogs, forums and news sites.
Since 2011, the company has had access to Twitter’s ‘firehose’, which allows 100% coverage of tweets sent out through the network. Brandwatch CEO Giles Palmer doesn’t hold back when it comes to Apple and social media.
“Apple's non-relationship with social media comes down to not being able to control the environment. With its stores, Apple has created a retail utopia where everything is clean, minimal and extremely beautiful; they even have a patent on their glass staircases.
“Social media by contrast is 'owned' and run by the crowd. It's uncontrolled and unpredictable and that's why many of us love it. But Apple-land it is not, so they don't play”, he says.
If Apple’s purchase of Topsy Labs signals a change in social media strategy for the company, then expect other tech giants to emulate them, but there may be no end of backlashes in 2014.
In the early 1960s Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase that ‘the media is the message’, a maxim that has never been more pertinent. Such a shame that most of the world’s biggest brands don’t know what it means… and that may include Apple itself.