LAST CHANCE:

Ten passes left to attend the Digiday Publishing Summit

SECURE YOUR SEAT

Apple opens a Twitter account to handle customer support

Notoriously wary of social media, Apple is starting to interact with people on Twitter.

Today, the brand quietly opened a support-focused account (@AppleSupport) to assist confused people with questions and concerns about its products and software. In the first few hours, the Twitter account is fielding questions about iOS troubles, feature requests and iPhone or iPad issues.

The handle has collected 50,000 followers with the average response rate clocking in at 15 seconds according to one observer. Brandwatch told Digiday that @AppleSupport has been used 2,000 times this morning for more than 28 million impressions. Men account for 78 percent of its mentions.

Apple maintains a scattershotapproach social media: Apple Music is on Facebook and Twitter, Beats 1 is active on Twitter, Tumblr and Snapchat and iTunes is on Twitter and Facebook, but hasn’t tweeted since November. Apple itself is not on Twitter or Facebook and the @apple handle remains dormant.

Perhaps Apple is realizing that offering live help on Twitter could help its brand: Research has shown that companies that are active on the service create stronger brand loyalty and increase sales, a fact not lost on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Perhaps an Apple account on Peach is on the horizon.

More in Marketing

WTF are AI agents? (video update)

Despite so much use of the A-word, it’s still early for AI agent adoption, meaning marketers should ask what agents are for, how they’re made, what they do, what they might do — and what they can’t do — including potential reputational risks.

‘Some brands will continue to take liberties’: Confessions of an influencer marketer on brands misusing creator content

While most brands do the right thing, there are still the odd few which try to cut corners, or, (more worryingly) think the same rules don’t apply to them.

What Blue Apron’s move to in-house its influencer marketing strategy says about the creator economy

Blue Apron has brought its influencer marketing in-house, part of a broader push to streamline operations following its $103 million acquisition by Wonder Group in 2023.