Let’s Get Social: Lessons Learned from the iPod Touch

On September 5, 2007, Apple launched their new iPod Touch. The launch appeared to be carefully planned out–perfectly timed with the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and full of social media marketing tactics. But Apple showed how being quick on your feet and easily adaptable with social media marketing can pay off, big time.

The social media marketing tactics

Apple started the fall campaign using a few social media marketing tactics for the iPod Touch, including:

Video: In September of 2007, the iPod Touch product page featured a video of Steve Jobs announcing its release, introductions to the iPod Touch software and a guided video tour of its features.

“Hot News:” From the Apple site, visitors were privy to a “Hot News” section that included information on the top downloads in iTunes as well as downloadable information for all of Apple’s products.

RSS Feeds: Apple offers several RSS Feeds, which is a standard for syndicating frequently updated content from a site via a newsreader. According to Apple, they actually build RSS right into the system and use it for innovative communication. Examples of Apple RSS Feeds available with the iPod Touch include movie trailers and the Top 25 New Releases (via iTunes).

Support Discussion Boards: Support discussion boards for the iPod Touch were made available on the support page of Apple.com, allowing users and employees to interact with each other and further strengthen their belief in the product and the Apple brand.

However, when a young fan created his own iPod Touch video on YouTube, Apple saw its viral potential and was able to act quickly to add it to their social media marketing plan. They contacted the 18-year-old creator of the spot and gave him the resources and direction to produce a professional version of his video, which they aired on network television. Consequently, both the amateur and professional video are still being replayed by numerous viewers on YouTube and other video sharing sites.

The traffic

The iPod Touch generated roughly 3 million searches in November 2007. Not too bad for a product that was largely rivaled by the iPhone. Its incredible traffic certainly helps to secure its status as one of the 2007 holiday season’s “hot” products.

The takeaway

Apple shows that successful social media marketing requires careful planning, consistency and a large degree of flexibility. They developed and stuck to their original strategy for the iPod Touch, yet weren’t afraid to take advantage of a viral opportunity when it came around.

Look for the next column in the “Let’s Get Social” series to find out more secrets of social media marketing success.

Lisa Wehr (info@oneupweb.com) is CEO and founder of Oneupweb, a digital marketing agency.