Apples new doohickey is here and all your friends who bought it have probably been making you look at it and ooh and ah over it and admit that theyre way cooler than you because they waited in a line bought a thing. But theres much more to the device itself, like the marketing campaign behind it. Socialmediab2b.com takes a scalpel to what a Steve Job-less Apple did to promote the new phone via social media, and two of its points are particularly interesting. (The third one is good, too, but a little more obvious, so well skip it here.)
The first is that you can no longer hope to control the conversation on social media. This should come as no surprise to anybody, but as attending a number of events at Social Media Week last week taught me: You cant assume anyone knows anything, or even much of anything, about social media. By its very nature, its the peoples platform. Theyll say whatever they want about anything and everything, and youll seem like a rube trying to shepherd whats going on there -- be it on Twitter or Facebook or wherever.
Like any big tech company, Apple tries to keep its big moves a secret until they can be revealed under their own terms. But as Socialmediab2b says, the control model of keeping everything a secret until the announcement is just no longer possible as you plan product announcements or other public activities, be aware [of that]. This is also why Apple manages its own supply chain, which may not always be possible for entrepreneurs, but it is something to consider if you are trying to minimize the number of leaks.
This isnt in the Socialmediab2b piece, but when Apple needed to reach out to others to help promote what it was planning, it was careful to not put all the cards on the table.
At least, thats what Karen Chu, showrunner of the Good Job, Brain! podcast says. Her podcast was featured in Apples promotional material for the new iPod Nano, like its website and also Apples top spots in iTunes and iTunes newsletters.
Early this year, Apple just asked me for clearance for my podcast logo in their marketing campaigns, said Chu. And I said yes, but had no idea what they were marketing... andthe fact that they chose to feature our little independent hobby show makes me believe they actively curate and explore the content that gets added to their system.
A couple months later, bam, there it was. Its great bragging rights for Chu, and also it turns her into a disciple for the brand -- by nature of telling people about it, shes also helping to promote Apples new device.
Which goes back to Socialmediab2bs other great point: make it about your customers, not your solutions. What does that mean?
So, if you talk about solutions, people will listen. And theyll also talk about them, too. Win-win.
Read the full thing over at socialmediab2b.com.
Originally posted here:
Social Media and Marketing Tips to Learn from Apple's iPhone 5 Launch