Building a universally loved brand without engaging in price wars against competitors is not easy. But one brand that has achieved this seemingly impossible feat is Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Behind Apple’s phenomenal success lies its strong product portfolio and design standards. But the company’s unparalleled marketing strategy has also played a crucial role in ensuring it stays on top of its game.
According to an infographic created by web design company, The Website Group, Apple’s winning marketing strategy provides lessons for small businesses.
The company created the infographic based on an article published in Entrepreneur.
Apple Marketing Lessons
Here are the 10 big lessons worth learning from the tech giant:
Keep it Simple
Apple likes to keep things simple and that works really well for consumers who are inundated with information.
Use Product Placement
Apple has a focused approach to promoting its products. The idea is to leverage an influencer to spread the word and get more followers.
Focus on Unique Value Proposition Rather Than Price
Over the years, Apple has succeeded in avoiding price wars by focusing on creating a unique value proposition. The company also provides cool features and applications to elevate user experience.
Stand for Something
Customers want to know what your brand represents and the core values that drive your business. Consistency is key and your messaging should reinforce your beliefs.
Create Experiences, Not Just Products
Offering customers unique experiences is a key element of Apple’s marketing strategy. And it has worked because unlike products, it’s not easy to imitate customer experiences.
Speak to the Audience Using Their Language
In keeping with Apple’s approach towards simplicity, the company uses language that consumers can understand easily.
Develop an Aura and Mystery Around What You’re Doing
The buzz around soon-to-be-launched products helps Apple generate interest among customers.
Appeal to Emotions
By striking an emotional chord with customers, Apple has created a positive brand image.
Use Visuals
Visuals are a more powerful medium than words to communicate today. That’s why Apple uses a more visual approach for its marketing campaigns.
To learn more, check out the full infographic below:
Advertisers are picking a fight over Safari’s new “intelligent tracking prevention” feature. But the iPhone maker isn’t backing down.
Apple has unequivocally rejected an ad industry request to “rethink” a privacy-protecting browser feature set to arrive this month in the newest version of its Safari web browser.
Six ad industry groups said Thursday that a Safari 11 feature called intelligent tracking prevention breaks existing browser conventions and “will … sabotage the economic model for the internet.” On Friday, Apple issued its response: Forget it. Online ads are violating our privacy, and Apple isn’t going to disable intelligent tracking prevention.
“Ad tracking technology has become so pervasive that it is possible for ad tracking companies to re-create the majority of a person’s web browsing history. This information is collected without permission and is used for ad re-targeting, which is how ads follow people around the internet,” an Apple representative said. “Apple believes that people have a right to privacy.”
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, announces Safari’s intelligent tracking prevention in June. Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET
Advertising is the lifeblood of the internet, fueling the immensely successful businesses of Facebook and Google without our having to pay a penny. Online ad spending will grow 17.4 percent to $223.74 billion this year, according to eMarketer, and advertisers are fighting against technology that makes it harder to track your online behavior so ads can be targeted more precisely.
But ads have become a problem, too. On top of the privacy invasion, ads drain phone batteries, use up our monthly data allotment, slow down websites and even sometimes deliver malware used to attack our computers. No wonder browser makers like Brave, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari are pushing back with limits on ads and ad tracking technology.
The advertising groups that banded together to object to Safari’s new feature didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cookie complaint
Their complaint stems from Safari’s new handling of cookies, the small text files that websites can store on your computer. Cookies can help you, for example by remembering your email username for faster login or recording what you’ve placed in a shopping cart. And they can help advertisers by logging websites you’ve visited and whether you clicked on their ads. Safari has long blocked third-party cookies, those placed on a website by a party other than the website publisher, but the six major US ad groups objected to how Apple is handling first-party cookies, too.
Specifically, they don’t like that Safari will automatically delete cookies its software determines are used to track you from one site to another, and they don’t like how it’ll automatically delete first-party cookies from websites you haven’t visited for more than 30 days.
“Apple’s unilateral and heavy-handed approach is bad for consumer choice and bad for the ad-supported online content and services consumers love. Blocking cookies in this manner will drive a wedge between brands and their customers, and it will make advertising more generic and less timely and useful. Put simply, machine-driven cookie choices do not represent user choice; they represent browser-manufacturer choice,” the ad groups said.
If you believe the ad industry has a point, you can disable intelligent tracking prevention in Safari’s settings.
Apple responded that it’s complying with cookie-handling standards and blocking loopholes advertisers used to violate privacy.
Intelligent tracking prevention “does not block ads or interfere with legitimate tracking on the sites that people actually click on and visit. Cookies for sites that you interact with function as designed, and ads placed by web publishers, will appear normally,” Apple said.
Apple is reportedly ready to fuel more premium TV content; it intends to spend $1 billion on original material, according to The Wall Street Journal.
While this sounds like a lot, the biggest digital media producer, Netflix, promises a massive $6 billion budget. In addition, it continues to sign major TV talent, such as TV producer Shonda Rhimes.
Apple’s outlay is equal to Amazon’s TV production — also $1 billion.
The erosion of broadcast ratings was due to rising cable networks’ programming and content. Now there is a new rival. Digital media is eating into both broadcast and cable TV.
John Landgraf, chairman of FX Networks, derides the glut of premium TV programing on all platforms — broadcast, cable, and digital platforms — which is now around 425 shows. He says they cannot all be financially supported.
Why is Apple — a massive digital device, computer, phone, and tablet company — looking to join the Netflix-Amazon-Hulu race?
Because it learned a valuable lesson in launching the iTunes/App Store over a decade ago — content drives digital device use. And premium digital video lures all sorts of companies.
For Apple, it will lift Apple TV OTT set-top boxes. At first glance, $1 billion may seem like a lot of money. But according to sources, it will finance 10 TV series, adding to the 425 total.
Apple, of course, has loads of cash. Is it truly interested in this proposition long-term? The ups and plenty of downs in producing long-lasting TV content is legion. Or is Apple thinking about something else?
One thing is certain — Apple will take a decent bite.
Apple and Google could be the biggest frenemies in tech. While they both compete like there’s no tomorrow, they also partner on some very specific deals. For instance, Google is paying a ton of money to remain the default search engine on iOS.
As CNBC first reported, according to a Bernstein analyst, Google could pay as much as $3 billion a year just to remain the default option in Safari.
Business Insider also obtained that Bernstein report and shared the thinking behind this number. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi starts from a previous court document from 2014 that stated that Google had to pay $1 billion every year to remain the default search engine on iOS back in 2014.
But mobile traffic as well as iPhone sales have been growing steadily since then. If you look at Apple’s services revenue, and in particular licensing revenue, as well as Google’s traffic acquisition costs, that number could be around $3 billion right now.
It shows that Google is still highly dependent from Apple. The vast majority of Google’s revenue comes from ads on search result pages. And Apple controls roughly 18 percent of the smartphone market.
As most users update to the latest version of iOS in just a few months, it doesn’t take long to change the default setting on hundreds of millions of iPhones. Google has no choice but to spend a ton of money to acquire this traffic
A few years ago, the iPhone shipped with a built-in YouTube app and Google Maps. When Apple realized that Google was becoming a serious competitor with Android, the company removed the YouTube app from iOS and worked on Apple Maps. Apple isn’t afraid of saying no to Google when it comes to iOS features.
Apple could probably not get as much money from Microsoft Bing, Yahoo Search or DuckDuckGo, but Apple doesn’t really need it anyway as it brings more than $45 billion in revenue per quarter now. It’s all about hurting Google’s bottom line.
As John Gruber noted, Apple is in a strong position in this negotiation. While it’s true that DuckDuckGo and Bing have gotten better over the years, it still lags behind when you’re using those search engines in non-English languages.
This incongruous situation is a great example of asynchronous competition. Apple and Google keep innovating and competing as hard as they can on the smartphone front. But they also partner on other aspects and even pay each other. Business schools will turn this situation into a great case study.
Taking a look back at another week of news from Cupertino, this week’s Apple Loop includes an exclusive look at the leaked iPhone 8 designs, Apple’s gamble over replacing Touch ID, the importance of the iPhone 7S, how to find the best MacBook deals, the problematic bugs in iOS 10.3.3, changes in iOS 11’s latest beta, App Store blocking ad blockers, and Apple publishes research papers on machine learning.
…users can expect Apple to release an iPhone 8 which almost completely eliminates the chunky bezels of previous iPhones. An elongated and enlarged 5.8-inch display will feature a cutout at the top for the front facing camera and sensors and it should mean notifications switch to a new ‘Function Area’ in iOS 11.
…In addition to this Apple will indeed replace the horizontally aligned dual rear camera of the iPhone 7 Plus with a vertically aligned shooter on the iPhone 8. This switch is to support Apple’s big drive into Augmented Reality where horizontally aligned cameras are more effective and the phone is expected to be held in a landscape orientation.
One intriguing decision that Apple will have to make for the iPhone 8 is biometric recognition. With the physical home button being promoted sideways to a virtual button on the screen, the existing Touch ID sensor is no longer going to work. What options does Tim Cook have, and why are there issues with each of the three major choices?
I’m tempted to put money on Apple sticking with the under-glass fingerprint reader. It’s a natural next step after the moveable home button was replaced with a pressure sensitive ‘area’ on last year’s iPhone 7, it fits with user expectations, and it’s something the opposition does not have. The reports of lower yields on the part also ties in with the late arrival of the iPhone 8. Rather than a trickle of handsets and lots of individuals disappointed that ‘they did not get one’, everyone has to wait, the iPhone 8’s arrival will be another media event and it can go from ‘zero’ to ‘old everywhere’.
Why Does Apple Want You To Buy The iPhone 7S Instead Of The iPhone 8?
What is the role of the iPhone 7S and the iPhone 7S? I’ve been thinking about this, and the answer might lie in the expected success of the ‘new’ iPhone each year. If Apple wants to use more advanced technology and break the mould then its flagship smartphone needs to be more expensive, more exclusive, and harder to obtain. If that’s the case for the iPhone 8, then the iPhone 7S will be needed to retain market share and pick up the slack.
Apple is not a company known for making dramatic changes to its product line. Rather than an iteration of the regular iPhone line, the iPhone 8 should be seen as a brand new category of iPhone. The iPhone 7S and 7S Plus are the conservative ‘next steps’, with the iPhone 8 representing a new way of thinking (an almost ‘Pro’ way of thinking).
That way is not about maximizing volume or delivering an updated package at the same price point for everyone who wants one. The iPhone 8 will be about luxury, about high price, about fashion statements and new technology. Think of the iPhone 8 should be seen as a luxury sports car, rather than a muscle car for the masses.
With the launch of the Touch Bar enabled MacBook Pro machines, Apple has upped the baseline price of the MacBook portfolio. That does not mean there are no bargains to be found, even from Apple. The quiet attraction of the Apple Store’s refurbished section continues to be illustrated, this week by Antonio Villas-Boas, starting with features and savings:
I wanted to upgrade from my old 15-inch 2012 MacBook Pro, but I didn’t necessarily need the latest 2017 model that comes with a hefty $2,400 price tag. From my knowledge of computer parts, I knew the processor in the 2016 model would easily serve my needs for several years, and I was looking to buy the 2016 model instead of the 2017 one for a lower price tag. But Apple doesn’t sell it online or in its physical locations.
I ended up buying a refurbished 15-inch 2016 MacBook Pro with the sixth-generation Intel Core i7 2.6 GHz processor for $1,950. That’s $450 I saved from buying the equivalent $2,400 2017 model with a seventh-generation Core i7 processor.
Apple has released the sixth notable update to iOS 10. Version 10.3.3. updates the security and fixes a number of bugs, but it still has some bugs that are unlikely to be addressed. This is potentially the last public update to iOS 10. These bugs leave those who won’t be able to update to iOS 11 (such as iPhone 5 users) in an awkward spot, as Gordon Kelly discovers:
Bugs are to be expected in all software, every update brings its share of fixes and faults. But iOS 10.3.3 is widely expected to be the final release of iOS 10 before iOS 11 debuts soon alongside a radically redesigned iPhone 8.
…This means that for the millions of iPhone and iPad owners who won’t be eligible for iOS 11, they are likely to be left with these problems for good. Furthermore there are some isolated reports iOS 10.3.3 has introduced new bugs in Game Centre, Apple Music, Mail and app updates.
In short: the final release before any new generation of iOS needs to be as close to perfect as possible because it is always the last update millions of devices will receive.
Flicking apps up and away from the task switcher has a long tradition in iOS but the latest version of the operating system threatened to remove that feature on the iPad Pro, much to David Phelan’s dismay. He and countless others can rest easy again, Apple has listened to the feedback and the flick is back:
The new software saw the departure of the way you could quit open apps on the iPad. Where previously you flicked them off screen to get rid of them, a gesture particularly satisfying when the app was misbehaving, you now had to hold your finger on the screen and then press the little X that appeared. If you’re an iPhone user, the flick still did the trick.
Well, the good news, great news if you’re me, is that Apple has fixed it in the latest, second version of the public beta of iOS 11.
Apple has tightened the rules for ad blockers in the App Store by enforcing its rule that third-party apps cannot interfere with other third-party apps. That means popular ad block apps such as Adblock and Weblock that address in-app advertising will no longer be allowed to update their offerings. Rather than be happy they haven’t been pulled, perhaps its worth worrying that there’s no way for users to control ads outside of the Safari web browser? Chance Miller reports:
With this policy shift apparently now in place, the only type of adblock apps that are now officially allowed on the App Store are ones that use the Safari Content Blocker. This is a more basic implementation of adblocking that only blocks ads in Safari, as opposed to VPN-based clients that block ads across all applications.
An alternative to labelling huge amounts of data is to use synthetic images from a simulator. This is cheap as there is no labeling cost, but the synthetic images may not be realistic enough, resulting in poor generalization on real test images. To help close this performance gap, we’ve developed a method for refining synthetic images to make them look more realistic. We show that training models on these refined images leads to significant improvements in accuracy on various machine learning tasks.
It’s the end of the line for VPN-based adblockers that target ads in third-party apps (although, according to Apple, these apps were always on shaky ground).
The developer behind the popular adblock apps Adblock and Weblock is now finding that Apple is rejecting app updates because they violate the App Store Developer Guidelines.
other words, using VPN or root certificates to remove ads being displayed in apps is not using the “APIs and frameworks for their intended purposes” and are, as such, a no-no.
Apple has been quick to point out though that contrary to earlier reports, is not a change in policy, but instead just a case of Apple enforcing existing policies.
“This is not a new guideline,” Apple said in a statement. “We have never allowed apps on the App Store that are designed to interfere with the performance or capabilities of other apps. We have always supported advertising as one of the many ways that developers can make money with apps.”
That last part makes a lot of sense for Apple, since many of its developers rely on advertising to monetize apps, and app wants to maintain good relationships with developers (even if that means upsetting those in the adblocker business).
It has also been suggested that part of the reason for Apple suddenly removing these VPN-based adblockers is that they interfere with the ads that Apple itself is displaying in iOS 11’s Apple News app.
Apple went on to say that it would be removing any similar apps it comes across that “may have snuck on to the App Store.”
This means that the only adblocking feature available to developers is the Safari Content Blocker, which can only block web ads being displayed in the Safari browser.
It’s unclear where this leaves apps such as Adblock and Weblock.
You know those pesky, annoying videos that automatically start playing when you open up a new web page, causing you to mute your computer and search feverishly for the pause button, or just close the browser altogether?
Or, even worse, those intrusive pop-up ads that block the page and force you to wait for 10 or 15 interminable seconds before you actually get to see the web page at all?
Those may soon be a thing of the past.
Apple on Monday announced a new feature to block autoplay videos on its next iteration of the Safari web browser. The upcoming version will also disable trackers that allow advertisers to monitor user activity for targeted ads. Apple announced the changes four days after Google, the dominant player in Internet advertising, reportedly told publishers about plans to roll out an ad blocker for its Chrome web browser.
“It’s far too common that people encounter annoying, intrusive ads on the web,” Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s senior vice president for ads and commerce, wrote in a Google blog post on Thursday.
These moves are as likely to delight consumers as they are to terrify publishers.
From the consumer perspective, autoplay videos and pop-up ads are the bane of the Internet user experience. They interrupt the flow of news consumption and create a nuisance for the reader.
For publishers, including CNN, autoplay videos can be a huge revenue generator. By having videos start automatically, publishers boost their overall video audience numbers by including users who may not actually watch the videos. They then take these jacked-up numbers to advertisers and sell ad space for more money.
Similarly, some advertisers are willing to pay more for pop-up ads because they know they’re advertisements will get it front of the consumer.
With the introduction of autoplay blocking on Safari and ad-blocking on Chrome, publishers could find themselves in a bind. Google alone accounts for more than 40% of the digital advertising market in the United States, according to digital marketing research firm eMarketer.
The internet is an ad-tracking machine. It’s been true for long enough that we rarely talk about it anymore, but it bears repeating. For all the free speech and free information, nearly any site you visit will come with a dozen different tracking cookies, enabling uniquely tailored ads to follow you from site to site. Targeted advertising is still the best way to make money on the internet, so those cookies are everywhere. (The Verge is no exception; that VR room isn’t cheap.) Sites try not to be creepy about it, some harder than others, but the overarching logic is hard to escape. It’s a multibillion-dollar business, and it pays for nearly everything you see online.
Yesterday at WWDC, Apple threw a wrench into that system. Alongside new autoplay blockers, the latest versions of Safari (currently in beta) will have a new tool for blocking third-party ad trackers, aggressively identifying and blocking any cookies used to track users across the web. As Craig Federighi said onstage, “It’s not about blocking ads, but your privacy is protected.”
It’s an important move, particularly for the mobile web, where Safari manages just under 30 percent of browsing sessions. When Safari added the option for ad-blocking with iOS 9, it was a day of reckoning for many web companies — raising hard questions about the future of mobile browsing. This week’s announcement is primed to make a similar splash.
According to Marc Al-Hames, who works on the privacy-focused browser Cliqz, companies are already scrambling to figure out the best way around the new restrictions. “This is a cat-and-mouse game, and it always has been,” Al-Hames says. “Users try out different things to protect themselves, and there’s a multibillion-dollar ad tech industry thinking of ways to circumvent it.”
Surprisingly, Google and Facebook are poised to come out of that game ahead. But to understand why, we need to dig into how the new policy works. Safari has had some version of cookie-blocking for years, but the previous default was to allow cookies “from websites I visit.” The new policy goes further, using machine learning to identify tracking behavior no matter how the cookies are served. In many cases, blocking those cookies outright would break basic functionalities. Instead, Safari puts a strict time limit on how long the cookie can stick around, keeping cookies available for 24 hours after a visit and outright deleting anything older than 30 days.
The crucial distinction is between the first-party sites you’re purposefully visiting and the third-party trackers that come along for the ride. As long as a cookie is associated with a website you’ve visited in the last 24 hours, Safari won’t change much — which gives popular sites like Facebook and the various Google services an easy way around the new restrictions. The systems hit hardest by Safari’s new policy will be third-party systems like Criteo or Adroll, which silently coordinate cookies in the background of thousands of sites. Not coincidentally, Criteo’s stock plummeted in the wake of the announcement.
That’s much less of a problem for Google and Facebook, which already dominate online ads. Most people visit Facebook or a Google service every day, and those users will never be too far outside the 24-hour window. Both services also work as a kind of permanent login, used to access sites like Twitter or WordPress without a separate password. As a result, most users stay logged in to Google and Facebook as long as they’re online. Combine that with omnipresent Like buttons, and you’ve got an easy way to see what people are doing on the web. And as long as you’re visiting Facebook once a day, Safari won’t get in the way of that tracking.
Google and Facebook’s biggest challengers in ad-targeting are telecom companies like Verizon and Comcast, which were given a huge boost by recent shifts in US telecom policy. But those companies should fare just as well. Both Verizon and Comcast invested heavily in web media alongside advertising tech, which means they can take advantage of the same first-party exception as Google and Facebook. (Disclosure: One of Comcast’s media investments is a minority stake in Vox Media, parent company of The Verge.) As long as you’re visiting AOL or Huffington Post sites once a day, Verizon will have no problem targeting ads, and cookie-serving deals may extend that reach even further.
At the same time, ad networks that aren’t attached to popular websites will take a serious hit. It won’t be a total blackout, since most modern networks supplement cookies with more advanced fingerprinting techniques that profile visitors without transmitting any data. They can also try to make cookie-serving agreements with websites, collecting data at the same time that they serve the ads themselves. But the new Safari policy will still put those ad companies at a permanent disadvantage to more powerful players like Google and Facebook. Those companies were already outmatched — with Google and Facebook capturing 90 cents of every new dollar spent on online ads — and the new browser moves will make it even harder for them to survive. The result will tip the balance even farther toward the handful of giant companies that already dominate the web.
Apple isn’t the only force pushing the web in that direction. The European Commission’s recent anti-tracking proposals would establish a similar distinction between first and third parties. Only last week, Google announced an ad-blocker for Chrome that’s likely to edge out small players even further. It’s still hard to say what that will mean for smaller websites and everyday users, but Google and Facebook will only become more central to the business of the web.
Underneath it all is the basic logic of consolidation. These players — Google, Facebook, Verizon, and Comcast — control huge portions of how we connect to the web, from the servers to the fiber to the device, ending with the browser itself. Now, they’re using that control to play for advantage in ad-tracking, with users stuck in the middle. iOS and Safari are incredibly powerful tools in that fight, and by all appearances, Apple is using them to try to craft a less invasive web experience for its users. But after more than a decade of ad tech, untangling that knot may be harder than the company realizes.
A security firm has managed to recover deleted notes as old as a couple of years.
The iCloud Notes you delete are supposed to be permanently wiped within 30 days. Gone forever, never to be seen again. Russian security firm ElcomSoft has discovered, however, that Apple has been keeping deleted notes in the cloud for far longer. Its security researchers were able to retrieve notes that should’ve vanished weeks and months ago. In some cases, they were even able to recover notes from way back in 2015.
It’s worth noting that ElcomSoft used special tools and software, so nobody will accidentally stumble upon a note you deleted last year. For your old files to resurface, somebody has to be actively targeting you. Still, it’s definitely a security issue that Apple should fix ASAP, and we’ve reached out to Cupertino to ask if it has plans to patch it up in the near future. ElcomSoft seems to be confident that Apple will, since the tech titan quickly fixed the similar Safari and iCloud Photo Library security lapses it found in the past. Since it’s the third time the firm discovered that Apple retains info that’s supposed to be gone, though, it posed some interesting questions that might never get answered:
“Once we made a discovery about deleted photos being kept in iCloud Photo Library for years, Apple was prompt to making those images disappear. Once we discovered that Safari browsing history records are never deleted from the cloud, Apple patched that as well. There is no doubt Apple will fix the current issue. The question is: what other data you don’t want Apple to keep is still retained by the company? And does Apple actually destroy deleted records or simply hides them or moves to a different server? These questions still have no answer.”
Engagement with social media remains flat, despite influx of new group of leaders among Fortune 500.
Domo and CEO.com released their fifth annual study on the social media habits of Fortune 500 CEOs.
After studying statistics from 2016, the Social CEO Report showed that while the social media habits of Fortune 500 CEOs have moderately improved over the past five years, they are still sputtering.
The report shows that despite 75 chief executive changes occurring in this group in 2016, these new Fortune 500 leaders had no significant impact on the group’s total social media report card.
One of the winners: Apple’s Tim Cook has the most Twitter followers – surpassing that of Warren Buffett and Marc Benioff.
This new report found that only 40 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs on the list were active on at least one of six major social networks in 2016 (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube), a slight increase from 2015. Of the Fortune 500 CEOs that use social media, 69 are active on more than one channel, and just 15 are active on more than two.
Only 40 Fortune 500 CEOs (8 percent) have a Facebook page, down from 57 in 2015. Of those, 32 were inactive for the last quarter of 2016. LinkedIn, which was acquired for $26.2 billion by Microsoft in 2016, remained the preferred social media “onramp” channel for Fortune 500 CEOs and LinkedIn’s Influencer program features some of the most active leaders on social media. In 2016, 35 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were using the platform, a three percent increase from 2015.
Just 36 Fortune 500 CEOs have Twitter accounts, but it remains one of the most actively used channels – with 70 percent of that group regularly using the platform in 2016, compared to 62 percent last year. Both Instagram and Google+ had modest gains in Fortune 500 CEOs with accounts since 2015, despite very little use of these channels.
New channels for video emerged in 2016. Facebook Live, LinkedIn Influencer videos and Twitter’s Periscope joined YouTube as social video platforms. Meanwhile Vine, also owned by Twitter, shuttered in 2016. These accounts are typically owned by corporate marketing and have featured their top brass, but Fortune 500 CEOs typically do not have their own accounts.
Other notable findings from the study include:
Expedia’s Dara Khosrowshahi is the only Fortune 500 CEO to use five social networks.
Apple’s Tim Cook has the most Twitter followers – surpassing that of Warren Buffett and Marc Benioff.
More than 40 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are featured on their company’s YouTube channel.
Executives from the technology, retail, media and entertainment sectors were most active on social channels in 2016.
