Apple = Talking and no listening

It was brought to my attention today by deejayspikes that while AppleInc has a very strong following on Twitter with over 24,000 followers AppleInc actually follows no one.

If you look at Apples Twitter page there are no @replies, no RT (re-tweets). In fact they use Twitter 100% as a channel to push out content. They do not use it to engage customers, answer questions, take feedback – they listen to no one. And yet 24,000 people are still following. I would imagine they are interested in the news Apple will give out. Is this the best way to use Twitter?

I checked the Twitter grade for both AppleInc and MSWindows and you may or may not be surprised to hear even though Apple has 24,047 followers as of today they're overall ranking is 5,684 out of 1.258M accounts. MSWindows on the other hand currently has 2,438 follower (1/10 the size) but is ranked 2,466 out of 1.258M. If you agree with Twitter Grader than you would agree Twitter is about following and listening as much as it is about pushing your message. To me there is just something fundamentally wrong with any Twitter account that literally has 0 following. This is the equivalent of a blog that doesn't take comments. This is pushing traditional marketing efforts through non-traditional channels. While I would love for MSWindows to have 24,000 followers I am even more excited about the conversation we are having with people everyday now.

Technorati Tags: apple,windows marketing,social media marketing,twitter,social media