Hey Apple, it’s time to embrace Social Media

As innovative of a company Apple is, it is surprising to think they have not embraced Social Media. Heck, even Bill Gates has a Twitter account now (@billgates). After just 2 weeks, Mr. Gates has more than 415,000 followers and the list is growing every day.

It is worth noting that within the past week Apple launched a YouTube channel where Apple has published five high-def videos about the new iPad. This move into Social Media makes sense considering a few years ago Apple’s only competitor was Microsoft. These days they also have to worry about Google, Nokia, Adobe and now the Amazon Kindle.

The more Apple pushes new products, the more competition they are going to have. It took time for the fans of Apple to build a base for their computers. With a little research, anyone can find out that if you bash Apple computers online; there will be fans ready to defend the brand. In iPad’s new waters, though, it is risky to assume the fans of other brands will easily jump ship and join Apple.

In 2010, it has been predicted by many experts that Social Media Marketing will take off. More and more companies are integrating Social Media into their businesses. For Apple, that means this mix of competitors will be, if not already, joining the Social Media race. If Apple does not start as well, they may lose some serious ground.

In the past, Apple has been very non-transparent and very controlling of their messaging. The only way anyone finds out about products is through rumors and at shows they host. Even their videos on YouTube have comments disabled. That is a shame because they could get a feeling for how people are perceiving the new iPad from those comments.

At the same time, the fact that they have created a YouTube account and published these videos shows they are fully aware of the power of Social Media. All five of the YouTube videos have embedding enabled. That means every time a person wants to blog about the new product, they can easily copy the code from YouTube and embed one or all of the videos within their blog. Now their fans are not only standing up for their brand, they are provided with a way to easily spread the word about new products.

So what MAY happen over the next few months? Steve Jobs on Twitter? Employee-published YouTube videos? An official Apple Fan Page? It will be interesting to see how Apple will take on Social Media, or if they will keep on ignoring it. I predict we’re going to be seeing more of Apple on our social networks. Once that happens, I predict bigger  gains from Apple and even better products.