Question

analyze apples social media performance. explain the apparent strategy based on what you see publicly presented. A swot analysis as well as what you consider to be the company's marketing plan would be appropriate. Consider who the company is targeting, and how social media helps to define that target. Complete a recommendation on what you would suggest the company should consider over the next 6 to 12 months, in terms of social media.

Answer 1

Segmentation and targeting of Apple:

Market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers (known as segments) based on some type of shared characteristics.

Market segmentation is based on variables such as behavior, demographics (e.g., gender, age, education, and income), geography, and psychographic characteristics, or those based on lifestyle and personality. In market segmentation you are forming customer personas that suit the best for your brand.

Targeting is when the company decides on which target customer segment they want to go after, which they think will be profitable for them.

For Apple, the market segmentation and target are clearly defined as

   •   Age group: 22 – 55

   •   Gender: Male and Female

   •   Income: Being an affluent brand, Apple targets medium to high-income individuals

   •   Lifestyle: Income becomes synonymous with lifestyle and since Apple has medium to high-income individuals as segments, the lifestyle they target is to Modern, young, open to change etc.

   •   Behavior: Hardcore loyalists – Once an Apple user, always an apple user!. These customer groups become very loyal to a brand and hardly change their brand.

Apples social media performance-

Apple has been running music-related social accounts for years, but its willingness to create official accounts for Apple itself is a relatively new development.

But both accounts show exactly zero activity. None. If you visit Apple's official Twitter page, you'll see that it has never tweeted. Apple's Facebook page has a bare wall as well.

Instead, Apple uses the accounts to buy advertisements for its latest products, like the iPhone 7, MacBook Pro, and Apple Watch. These posts are "dark social," which means that Apple is taking advantage of advertising tools to promote posts that don't show up on the main account's feed.

This approach memorably resulted in promoted tweets revealing the iPhone 7 and its key features before Apple did it itself at one of its launch events.