Apple launched a range of new products yesterday. There’s a marketing lesson behind this launch, that’s of huge value to the rest of us, if we take a leaf out of Apple’s book. (or notebook!)
Apple iPhone, Safari and MacBooks – FREE advertising & publicity
None of the information I have about the new Apple iPhones, the new Safari browser or the new Apple MacBooks came from paid advertising. All of it, including hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of coverage on the BBC, was gifted to Apple – 100% free of charge!
Apple have managed to cultivate a relationship with their customers and tech journalists, which motivates them to tell everyone about whatever Apple are doing. This reaches a frenzy whenever a new product is launched!
Many of Apple’s customers even write fan blogs, where they discuss Apple products with their readers. Can you even imagine how powerful that is – to have YOUR customers investing their own time, telling everyone how great you are?
If you are interested in learning about viral marketing, you could do a lot worse than study what Apple are doing!
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I agree that Apple gets a ton of free press. However, i fail to see where they have cultivated community. Their products are the best, and the geeks love them. This has created value from the standpoint of amazing hardware that is worth writing about. However, Apple is no where to been seen in the social media space from a company perspective. In fact a friend of mine nearly lost his job at the Apple store for sending out a tweet saying that he was working his first day in retail.
Apple is an enabler or content, nt a producer of content. they have done an amazing job with their products. It’s too bad they picked AT&T for a partner though. they clearly don’t have a clue when it comes to embracing community. I wrote about it yesterday on my blog.
Good points.
Keith
http://keithburtis.com/2009/06/att-and-apple-fail-to-embrace-community/
Keith,
I think you answered your question in the first paragraph, when you said of Apple products; “the geeks love them”.
I write a very successful tech news blog and get passionate Apple fans comment there every day.
Here’s what happened when I asked one of the best-known Apple fans (Cali Lewis) why she gave them so much free publicity.
http://www.thetechnewsblog.com/2008/09/26/the-new-macbook-pro/
Apple have carefully cultivated a massive geek community, through their marketing, design, PR and (of course) products.
They don’t need to pay people to spend hours Tweeting, blogging or plugging them on FaceBook / StumbleUpon – because their community do that for them.
Hey Keith – hope you are well bro – in response to your response above, I do agree that both Apple and AT&T could do a better job in social media communities. It could definitely help with customer relations. However, they have done an effective job of developing offline relationships with many creditable, influential bloggers and tech journalists as well as many customers and fans that do have tremendous reach; say millions of eye balls that are seeing “free” write ups. That is extremely valuable in comparison to advertising dollars to reach the same amount of eye balls.
To receive and attention and free press in the media for your product or service, it requires an investment of your time to develop good relationships with journalist and bloggers… spamming and press releases don’t accomplish that.
geeks know how to use the internet.. apple fans are fanatical though and the truth is Vista did so much for apple.. Once you used that god awful piece of software.. Apple looked a lot better. I mean who trusts anything microsoft does now.