Apple Social Media Audit and Digital Marketing Strategy

2.0 Social media inventory

2.1 Current social media platforms used by the organisation

An understanding of the social media platforms used by Apple must consider the wide-scope definition of social media as a platform service. While social media platforms are linked to common names like Instagram, these are instances of social media networking sites. Therefore, this section will address various social media platforms including networking sites to present a coherent audit report.

Social networking sites: Apple has an official platform presence across different social media networking sites across legacy platforms like Facebook and X/Twitter, as well as more emerging platforms like TikTok. Apple’s social media platforms are therefore used to a maximal extent, as they cover all the main platforms that drive the highest returns on marketing as well as brand visibility currently (Lim and Puspita, 2020). Apple primarily uses user-generated marketing content for promotion on its social media pages, such as selfies, photos or videos taken by brand collaborators

Discussion forums: Apple enthusiasts from consumer segments are present in online discussion forums, thereby acting as individual brand advocates through their moderation of Apple-centric discussions as well as helping individual consumers with their concerns. For instance, leading discussion forums of social media like Reddit and Apple's discussion forum for consumers have proactive, moderated discussions that are open access for non-registered members, which drives the visibility of brand content and new product launches as well (Lim and Puspita, 2020).

Online rating sites: Apple also relies on driving digital engagement through online rating sites and industry reviewers who have considerable independent brand value in promoting Apple products. This is evidenced by leading content reviewers of Apple brands such as Marques Brownlee who reviews consumer technology products under his MKBHD brand (Haslam·, 2023). MKBHD's outreach is significant with Apple, as evidenced by the current Apple CEO using MKBHD social media posts from X while promoting the latest iPhone 15 at a launch event (Haslam·, 2023). Other online ratings sites like DXOMARK are independent reviewers who promote Apple as a brand indirectly, through the positive positioning of Apple products in the hierarchy of ranking lists displayed on the website (Lim and Puspita, 2020).

2.2 Frequency of content posted on each channel

Social networking sites: Posts are made regularly every week to engage viewers with curated content on social media networking platforms like Instagram. These posts are directly moderated by Apple due to the collaborative nature of brand promotion on social networking sites.

Discussion forums: These forums are self-directed or continuous in their indirect engagement, as the content posted on discussion forums like Reddit is from brand users, non-users and other individuals.

Online rating sites: Content regarding Apple promotion is occasionally posted through reviews, covering new product launch events and speculating on upcoming product information through videos and posts.

2.3 Social media objectives intended for strategic achievement by the organisation

Apple aims to create a lifestyle engagement with consumers through its promotional activities, and a similar objective is followed when marketing digitally across different channels. On Instagram, Apple posts for marketing focus on content creation narratives and user-generated marketing material, thereby illustrating real-world uses of Apple products in creating value for consumers. Apple also leverages professional content creators, such as filmmakers, to direct music videos or short movies using Apple’s latest iPhones to market the brand through shared association. By associating the brand value of leading industry creatives like Steven Speilberg in promoting iPhones, Apple gains enhanced consumer association with its brand image of premium-priced offerings (Holland, 2022). The social media content promotion in this way maintains user-generated content focus, as Apple otherwise maintains control over its direct campaign and marketing activities in-house (Almeida et al., 2021). This allows Apple to retain security through secrecy against new product launches, and therefore the indirect social media user-generated marketing objective is maintained.

2.4 Comparison with main competitors in this space

Apple’s proactive marketing control makes it unique against its competitors such as Samsung, as Apple has managed to increase its content engagement against other brands. The ‘shot on iPhone’ concept was grown from this collaborative outcome of marketing through content created by iPhone cameras and allows Apple to benefit from enhanced brand equity gained from such campaigns (Holland, 2022). By comparison, direct rivals like Samsung have a weaker positioning in this space, as evidenced by Apple's lead in engagement metrics for social media and digital marketing such as brand advocacy and retention. It is also evidenced by the higher brand equity of Apple as a brand compared to Samsung, as Apple is among the few global companies with near-trillion-dollar brand equity at $880.5 billion as of the current year (Faria, 2023).

3.0 Current performance

3.1 Analysis of identified social media channels for performance

Apple’s marketing performance is exemplary in its social media marketing dimension, as Apple gains strong brand recognition continuously when posting user-generated content online. This leads to constant brand promotion across different segments of consumers, owing to the diversity of brand collaborators from various niche backgrounds. This allows Apple to maintain brand awareness across different segments from collaborations with leading influencers as well as smaller influencers (Jamil et al., 2022). This ensures Apple's marketing on social media network platforms creates sufficient presence of marketing engagement to sustain the brand identity uniformly across Instagram and Twitter as well as other platforms.

Apple also leverages Instagram’s image-sharing model to gain the advantage of sharing user-generated marketing content. This allows Apple to create a higher quality of advertisement content in digital marketing, where user-generated content creates a more favourable impression among consumers due to its organic design and perceived authenticity (Jamil et al., 2022). Social media marketing allows Apple to maintain yearly engagement for its brand across different products, as marketing different products uniformly promotes the Apple brand and its collective ecosystem of products and services (Montgomerie and Roscoe, 2013). This ties into Apple’s business model of leading consumers to different touchpoints for using their different and compatible products and services as part of integrating the consumer into the Apple brand lifestyle (Montgomerie and Roscoe, 2013).

Apple’s marketing through review sites also leads to positive engagement on websites and video-sharing social media platforms like YouTube, where leading reviewers like MKBHD cover Apple product launch content after subsequent launches. This creates a stronger confidence in buyers towards influencing their purchase intention, as the positive reviews experienced online lead buyers to make more informed purchase decisions (Zhang, Zheng and Wang, 2020). It also allows buyers to gain a thorough awareness of product features and qualities in professional review videos, thereby promoting the Apple brand through parasocial engagement.

4.0 Recommendations

4.1 Recommendations for Improving Social Media Performance

The recommendations for Apple’s social media marketing performance can be phrased through Chaffey’s RACE Planning System for Digital Marketing (Chaffey, 2019). This will develop the recommendations comprehensively across the four dimensions of buyer stages to express digital touchpoints for market engagement.

Reach: The first stage of buyer behaviour in this model relates to the exploration of digital mediums for gaining insights into brands, products and related information to inform them towards making a purchase decision (Chaffey, 2019). Apple can increase its Search Engine Optimisation feature to increase the responsive positioning of search engine results when consumers input variable words such as ‘smartphone’, ‘app’ or other keywords. Apple benefits from semantic search in this way as its branding strategy for different products ensures relevant hits are registered when consumers search for queries to match intended results.

Act: The second stage of the RACE model involves decision-making towards making a purchase decision outcome (Chaffey, 2019). At this stage, Apple can optimise its social media platforms for developing innovative engagement by creating stronger touchpoints. For instance, sharing user-generated content is recommended for continuation in promoting consumer engagement across different touchpoints as it leverages social media platforms as a content hub towards increasing consumer awareness during the customer journey activities. Apple can also optimise different types of media such as paid, owned and shared media to increase the click-through-rate progress of new visitors.

Convert: The third stage is essential as it leads to the purchase decision by the buyer with the Apple brand product or service (Chaffey, 2019). Apple’s brand identity can be strengthened here through messaging on digital marketing channels such as social media platforms, where Apple representatives can promote the brand through after-sales engagement material. This includes newsletter emails for promotional material regularly, as well as overall conversion rate optimisation for continued purchases. This is essential to draw the consumer into the Apple ecosystem of products and services, thereby creating a stronger lifetime value derived from the individual consumer (Montgomerie and Roscoe, 2013).

Engage: The last stage involves creating the brand advocacy sentiment in consumers by securing a highly satisfactory after-sales engagement experience online. Apple can achieve this by maintaining strong customer support on social media platforms, where consumers routinely interact with Apple representatives (Wilk, Soutar and Harrigan, 2021). This is evidenced by Apple representatives on Twitter where the micro-blogging nature of the platform enables fast resolution of customer queries and issues. Brand loyalty ensures Apple maintains its user-generated marketing ability through real-life advocacy sentiments shared by consumers online, such as Google reviews (Wilk, Soutar and Harrigan, 2021).

4.2 Conclusion

The audit report has evaluated the digital marketing and social media marketing content of Apple, from a strategy perspective. The findings show that Apple is a market leader in retaining brand advocacy value from consumers, as well as highly successful in maintaining yearly engagement for benefits in lifetime value and retention rate metrics of digital marketing. For students analysing similar digital marketing strategies, marketing assignment help can provide useful guidance on applying frameworks such as RACE. The given recommendations are presented across the RACE model to ensure Apple can benefit from its practical implementation across digital touchpoints.

References

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