How Taylor Swift and Apple Both Came Out on Top

This past week has been a long back and forth between pop-star Taylor Swift and major music mogul, Apple Inc. It appeared to be the clash of the ages, beginning with Swift posting an open letter to Apple on her Tumblr account on June 21. In the letter, Swift explained she will not be supporting Apple’s new streaming service because during the 90 day free trial for customers artists that are available to stream will not be paid.

           

After the letter was published it immediately went viral and, eventually grabbed Apple’s attention. A few days after the letter was published Apple responded to Swift’s letter, saying that they will pay all artists that are available on the streaming service for the first three months.

           

Swift had won the battle she had sought to win, however, it was until June 26, nearly a week after the original letter was published, that Swift finally said she would allow her 1989 album on Apple’s streaming service. In typical Swift fashion she made the announcement in the form of a simple tweet thanking Apple for listening to her concerns.

           

What’s important to note here from a PR stand point is that, while at first, it might seem like Swift came out on top, there’s room for Apple at the top as well. For Swift, her all-star status was reaffirmed and her name is now being seen all over the news as the artist that stood up to Apple. For Apple, they saved millions in free publicity for their new streaming service. Now, not only does the public know about their new service and the fact that it’s free for the first three months, they also know it’s morally solid and that Apple did the right thing by agreeing to pay artists.

           

In the field of public relations the more a company can get their name and service out there without spending a cent is vital because it leaves more funds to do original, innovative or exciting things within a campaign. Though of course Apple isn’t hurting for money, the lesson learned from Taylor Swift v. Apple 2015 is something that all public relations professionals and students can apply to their work.

           

Free publicity can be negative or positive and PR professionals can never be quite sure what they’re going to get until they see it, however, taking a note from Apple it’s easy to see that the saying “all publicity is good publicity” still holds true in the world of PR.        

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Account Executive Hannah Litchfield 

The Apple Watch

No matter your opinions on the new Apple Watch, the simple fact of the matter is that you have heard of it. Anyone that is even somewhat remotely active on social media or catching their news online has probably heard news about the new Apple Watch from someone, whether their comments were positive or negative. This is exactly how Apple is getting the best unpaid marketing possible.

When Apple announced its new watch earlier this month the Internet exploded. Some people were excited and others were skeptical, calling it unnecessary and over the top. Call it what you will but Apple is riding this controversial surge perfectly.

A recent social media study by Mediametric stated that on the day the new watch was announced the amount of social media chatter and buzz that the watch produced well surpassed Game of Thrones, which had just released a trailer for it’s upcoming season. That’s really saying a lot, that within minutes of being unveiled it had gathered more social media steam than one of the most social media frenzied shows on television.

Now, starting in early April you can walk into an Apple Retail store and try on an Apple Watch for no more than fifteen minutes, along with a whole other bunch of conditions that must be met before you try it on. In order to try on the watch for fifteen minutes an appointment has to be made and the fifteen minutes are guided one on one with an Apple employee. At the time of the appointment you can also schedule another appointment to pick up your watch when it’s officially released at the end of April.  
Seriously, how amazing of a marketing ploy is that after such a media uproar? What can Apple do after such a controversial social media explosion except make the product even more mysterious and controversial by allowing people to try it on with all of these crazy stipulations.

Not only is Apple using all of the social media to their advantage, despite the fact that responses seem to be split evenly down the middle in terms of positive posts and negative posts, they are also doing an excellent job of upping the hype even more by allowing shoppers to wear their watches for fifteen minutes in a very controlled environment.

Word of mouth advertising can be one of the most important aspects of a companies PR campaign nowadays, especially since opinions and thoughts travel so quickly on social media. Apple is showing exactly how you can play that word of mouth up and use it to your advantage by creating even more hype and talk.

Regardless of how well the Apple Watch actually sells, it will still have accomplished it’s goal of being one of the most talked about things on social media and that, in and of itself, is a major PR achievement. 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Hannah Litchfield.

Misuse of Social Media Spells Trouble For PR

Although the use of social media has become a requirement in the public relations field, it can also have its downsides.  Not only does the rate at which information disseminates make a PR professional’s job even harder, but controlling public discourse has become nearly impossible. 

The recent GamerGate issue is a perfectly example of this. What started out as an attempt to expose a gaming journalist, Nathan Grayson, for supposedly giving a female game developer, Zoe Quinn, a positive review of her game simply because they were thought to be dating, snowballed into many women within the gaming industry coming out against the sexism within the industry and within the games themselves. The resulting hash tag, GamerGate, came about as a response to those women that were speaking out, sometimes harassing them via Twitter and even sending them death threats.

Among some of the people that spoke out about the gender issues in today’s games were Arthur Chu, a former Jeopardy contestant who has been published in many places online discussing the issue of sexism in games, and Ian Miles-Cheong, editor-in-chief of Gameranx, a popular gaming magazine.

A statement that Cheong made made him the target of GamerGate, however the people of the movement didn’t attack Cheong on twitter, but rather Arthur Chu, the completely wrong person.

This is where it get’s interesting for public relations professionals. How do you represent your client in a way that clears their name entirely when in order to do so you would have to find a way to address every single person that attacked your client on Twitter? That’s borderline impossible, especially when most people involved with GamerGate remain anonymous, using different usernames and e-mails to mask who they are. How can you change the audience’s view about incorrect facts when you don’t even know who your audience is?

The answer is, you can’t. Social media at its best is a way for public relations professionals to do their job, to interact with their audience and to present consistent branding. Social media at its worst means almost a total lose of control for public relations professionals.

What do public relations professionals do when the one tool they use the most turns against them? Let us know how you would handle this situation as a PR professional in the comments!  

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Hannah Litchfield.