Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Apple is sitting on a social media goldmine
Apple recently launched a new version of its famous music and media software, iTunes. One interesting addition to this was the ability for people to broadcast the songs or movies they were about to buy on Twitter or Facebook.
This is a good step towards integrating some social media functionality, but it’s only scratching the surface. Considering the huge number of people that actively use iTunes, Apple is sitting on a potential social media goldmine.
The way for Apple achieve success wouldn’t necessarily just be by broadcasting what songs people are listing to on iTunes via Twitter/FB although this would make sense (right now you can only tell the world about things you’re thinking of buying from the iTunes store). What apple really needs to do is create their own social network of iTunes fans on top of their current platform. Here’s a few crucial steps to achieve this.
Step 1 – Promote this new iTunes social network to users via email and/or the iTunes store
Step 2 – Make it easy for people to punch in their email addresses, facebook profiles and Twitter handles to help them find friends using the iTunes social network and invite those that haven’t joined to sign up.
Step 3 – People can see what their iTunes friends are buying/listening to. They can see if people in their network reviewed or rated certain products and should also be able to see if people in their network have bought a certain item they are interested in.
Step 4 – People can make ‘friends’ based on similar musical/movie/audiobook/game/application interests. That’s actually a much stronger basis to make friends with strangers on than just randomly adding people as often happens in Twitter.
Step 5 – Creating this type of network also provides an amazing opportunity for Apple to connect artist with their fans. Image how much more cost effectively gigs and concerts could be marketed through a ready-made iTunes fan base. Also, if this social network enabled sharing of user generated media, concert photos/video etc could be shared through the network too (gotta be careful about copyright issues here of course).
Considering the passion that many Apple fans have for the brand and its products, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get buy in from a hard-core niche of iTunes fans who can then help spread the service out to a wider range of users. This of course maybe something Apple has up its sleeves, in any case it’ll be interesting to see what the next iteration of iTunes brings.
Comments for Apple is sitting on a social media goldmine
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not forgetting iTunes already having the ability to accept payments stored into an account, how many social networks have a reason to have that? Opens up being able to gift useful things, not just gif images of glasses of beer!
— Neelesh · 15 September 2009, 17:36