Apple Gets A Little More Serious About Using Twitter

Screen shot 2009-10-20 at 12.34.03 AMWhile the various forms of social media are becoming increasingly important to brands, Apple is one company that hasn’t exactly rushed to get involved. Sure, they have a few accounts here and there, but they’re not exactly Google, with their 500 Twitter accounts (okay, it’s really more like 50). But they could be slowly warming up to the idea.

Back in March, the company started tweeting from its first official Twitter account, iTunesTrailers. They even went so far as to highlight the account on their Apple.com Trailers page. Thanks to the suggested users list, that account now has well over 1 million followers and they’re probably seeing a not entirely insignificant amount of traffic coming from there. And now they’ve added a few more accounts:

iTunesMusic

iTunesMovies

iTunesTV

iTunesPodcasts

These are all new accounts. A couple of them have just over 1,000 followers, but the other two have under 100, and haven’t tweeted yet. But it would seem that Apple wants to promote all of them now, as it has created a customized background for each account’s Twitter page, highlighting the other accounts (and its Facebook iTunes Fan Page, as well).

One account you’ll notice that Apple does not have though, is twitter.com/apple. That account has one tweet, from March 16, which reads, “I love apples.” That hardly seems like something Apple the company would say, and the account points to a Gmail account in its profile, which would seem to suggest they may be interested in selling it. But with just one Tweet in 7 months, Twitter is probably within its rights to simply close the account and give it to Apple, if the company wanted it.

(As a sidenote, there is also a Twitter account with the name “appleinc“, but it’s currently protected.)

Obviously, Apple added a bit of social media to iTunes 9 recently, by including the ability to share items on both Facebook and Twitter. But the effort is half-hearted as best. It’s not like you can share what you’re listening to, just what you’re thinking about buying, or just bought.

Apple has always marched to its own drumbeat, so it seems unlikely that we’ll see Apple corporate tweeting the way that people at Google, Yahoo, and even Microsoft do, but these new accounts could signify a slight thawing of the ice. After all, we do know that Apple does like Twitter.

Screen shot 2009-10-20 at 12.33.40 AM

[via Iain Dodsworth]