Social Media Marketing: A Case Study of Apple's iPhone Campaign

This report analyzes the 'Shot on iPhone' campaign, a social media marketing strategy employed by Apple to showcase the camera capabilities of its iPhones. The report examines the campaign's implementation across various social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, detailing how Apple leveraged each platform to engage users and promote its product. It explores the campaign's objectives, which included demonstrating the high-definition camera quality, and its execution through user-generated content and curated galleries. The report provides an overview of the campaign's success, highlighting the significant user engagement and brand visibility it achieved. Furthermore, it includes an executive summary, background information, observations from social media, and a reflection on the campaign's effectiveness. The study also provides insights into the use of social media in marketing, its impact on corporate branding, and statistical data on social media usage in the UK to contextualize the campaign's reach and influence. This report, available on Desklib, offers valuable insights into effective digital marketing strategies and case studies for students.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS
SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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Field notes
Field entry
In the present date, social media is widely used for various purposes such as for leisure
activities, gaining information, connecting with people or for organizing a campaign or other
social activities. As per the researchers, it was found that in the present date Facebook has 2
billion active users globally. The number of active users of Youtube is 1.5 billion as of January
2018. The social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter are also prominently used all over the
globe.
A campaign known as "Shot on iPhone" has been trending for number times on the social
media platforms. Apple launched this social media campaign for the first time in March 2015 to
advertise the features of iPhone cameras worldwide. The campaign was a huge success all over
the world. More than 24 countries and 70 cities participated in the campaign by sharing their
iPhone clicked pictures in their twitter handle, Facebook and Instagram with the hashtag "shot on
iPhone" (Rowles 2017). The purpose of this case study is to analyze the importance of social
media in corporate branding. The main objective of the campaign is to demonstrate the high
definition camera of the iPhones. In "shot on iPhone" campaign, Apple and the media labs

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shortlisted around 77 pictures for displaying in their wall gallery (Sturken 2017).
Figure1: One of the images from the 77 chosen pictures of the “shotoniphone” campaign
Figure 2: Some of the images from the “shotoniphone” campaign

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Apple, with the help of this campaign well demonstrated how its camera is unique from the rest
of the other products in the market. They started their first campaign of “shot on iPhone" before
the launch of iPhone 6.
Other entries
First observation- Twitter
Apple launched it's iPhone 6 in the month of September 2014. Other than having updated
hardware, one of the most distinguished features of this model is its high definition camera. In
order to market this product, Apple initiated the campaign of Shot on iPhone. It is observed that
the within a short span of time twitter was seen flooded with the hash tags "Shotoniphone".
Figure 3: People posting on Twitter with the hashtag "shotoniphone"

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Figure 4: Twitter post for the shot on iPhone campaign for the launch of iPhone 7.
People participated with great enthusiasm in this campaign demonstrating the features of the
Apple's camera. In the very first campaign, Apple was mentioned 6.5 million time in the twitter
and it was found that 95% of the mentions where due to the online campaigns (Chavaglia and
Filipe 2015). Apple selected number of photos for their world gallery clicked by people who are
not a professional photographer. Apple having 1.68 million followers on Twitter has successfully
implemented its world gallery campaign on Twitter. Starting from celebrities to business
professionals, the youth have taken the twitter handle with the storm. It is observed that the
Apple continued this campaign even in the consecutive years to portray there newly developed
models worldwide (Neto and Filipe 2016).

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Figure 5: Number of followers of Apple Inc in twitter
iPhone 6 is incorporated with new sensors that could take images with high clarity and precision
(Treem and Leonardi 2013). The campaign was all about to focus on what the camera can do
rather than focusing on what the device as a whole can do.
Figure 6: Screenshot of the world gallery campaign tweets flooding the twitter.
Second Observation- Instagram
In the year 2017, Apple Inc created an official Instagram account. Instagram being a platform
for the passionate photographers, this will attract a number of individuals to the Apple's world
gallery campaign. Apple took to Instagram for sharing their videos and images related to their
campaign. Currently, this Instagram handle is known to have 4.3 million followers. Apple
already shared 134 posts till date all related to their shot on iPhone campaign.

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Figure 7: Screenshot of the official Instagram handle of twitter
In order to be a part of this campaign in the Instagram, one has to post their clicked images from
their iPhones with the hashtag "ShotoniPhone"
Figure 8: Screenshot of some of the shared posts of the campaign on Instagram.
Apart from sharing of images, Apple also took interviews of some of the renowned artists and
posted the interviews as the voice track for the video galleries. In each of the Instagram post, the
photographer's description regarding the picture is also posted in the description.

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Figure 9: Screenshot of an Instagram post of the campaign
In order to gain more attention of the Instagram users, Apple decided to create themes for the
campaign such as self-pictures, setting themes as per the trends thus portraying diversity across
the world. This was the objective of the company to capture the diversity across the world with
the help of its phone’s camera, thus defining the high definition of its phone’s camera (Montalvo
2016).

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Figure 10: Screenshot of the Self-series pictures posted on the Instagram.
Third observation- Facebook
Apple also took to Facebook for expanding this campaign. Currently, Apple has more than 11
million followers on Facebook. Extending this campaign to this platform has enabled wider
access.
Figure 11: Screenshot of the Facebook profile of the Apple.

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In the Facebook handle Apple shared number of posts related to the shot on iPhone campaigns.
The videos and photos which are posted got millions of views and shares, thus making more and
more people aware of the campaign.
Figure 12: A screenshot of the Facebook post of the " shot on iPhone" campaign.
The campaign even got trending on Facebook, number of blogs and posts regarding this
campaign were shared by individuals and groups all over the world. In the present date,
Facebook has more than 2 billion users, thus posting articles and pictures related to this
campaign have gained much attention among the social media users (Phua, Jin and Kim 2017).
People became more aware of the campaign from the posts shared on the Facebook. People also
took to Facebook for sharing their pictures clicked with iPhone. People shared the world gallery
pictures on their Facebook account.

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Figure 13: Screenshot from Facebook, a world galley picture from the "shot on iPhone
campaign. The campaign was widespread in 70 global cities because of the trending stories in the
Facebook (Stelzner 2014).
Figure 14: Screenshot of the various Facebook post related to the "shot on iPhone" campaign.
Reflection
As per the observations from the various social media platforms, it can be said that the
Apple's strategy of marketing its iPhone with the help of the shot on iPhone campaign was

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successful. The Apple Inc extended this campaign for marketing its subsequent models as well.
The brand image of the Apple Inc has been instrumental in making this campaign successful in
various social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

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Industrial report
Social media campaign- a Case study on "shot on iPhone" campaign
Executive summary
The purpose of this report is to analyze the impact of social media on corporate branding. Social
media plays a crucial role in marketing. In the present date, billions of people are actively using
social medium, thus social media marketing can reach out to the maximum number of people. In
this report, with the help of a case study, the utilization of social media in corporate branding is
analyzed. The chosen case study for this report is the "shot on iPhone" campaign carried out by
Apple Inc. The campaign is all about demonstrating the camera features of the iPhones. Apple
aimed to portray how a single phone camera can create wonders by capturing diversities all over
the world. The campaign flooded the social media platforms with pictures that are clicked form
the iPhones. This strategy of Apple, of marketing their phone camera to increase the demand for
their newly developed phone models has proved to be successful. Apple carried out this
campaign in the following years to make their product launch a huge success. The report
discusses the usefulness as well as the limitations of the “ shot on iPhone” campaign. Lastly, the
report concludes that the campaign was a huge success considering the number of hashtags that
were trending on the social media sites and nothing can be a better mode of demonstrating
products compared to the social media platforms. Additionally, it also suggests some valuable
recommendations which can be used for better business performance.

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Background of the case study
Apple Inc after launching the iPhone6 in the year 2014, decided to start a campaign that
would showcase the highly impressive camera of their product. This started six months after the
launch of iPhone6s. The camera is the main centre of attraction of the phone; Apple decided to
demonstrate the cameras on the social media platforms (Gensler et al. 2013). In a short span of
time, it was observed that the hashtag "shot on iPhone" have taken the internet by storm. One of
the reasons for launching this campaign was to compete with the renowned android brand
Samsung. As a part of this campaign, Apple decided to choose the best of all the shots that have
been taken from the iPhone. The best shots will be displayed in the World gallery of Apple. In
order to participate in this campaign, one has to click a unique picture with his/her iPhone and
hashtag the picture with "shot on iPhone" (Scott 2015). The best pictures were selected by the
Apple to display on Billboards, hoarding on bus stops, train stations and shopping malls.
The foremost reason behind the huge success of the "shot on iPhone" campaign is the vast usage
of social media that is prevailing worldwide. Considering the case of UK, there are nearly 39
million active users in the country. As per the statistical analysis, Facebook is the most visited
site in the UK.
In the UK the frequency of browsing the social networks increased steadily. In the year
2015, it was observed that the users logged in their social media accounts more than ten times a
day. The younger generation is the major users of social media in the UK. As per the reports, the
number of women accessing social media is 11% more than that of men (Kannan 2017). Other
researchers suggest that the average percentage of users of Twitter is more likely to be male,

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whereas vast proportions of the Facebook users are females. Apart from using the social media
sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram other channels such as emails and chats are also
prominently used by a large number of peoples in the UK (Rose 2016). Considering these
statistics, it can be said that social media campaigns such as the "shot on iPhone" campaign is
sure to provide great exposure to the product. In the recent times, companies started spending
more on the social media advertisements.
Figure: Screenshot of Data showing how the investment in social media advertisements
increased.
Researchers also suggest that the penetration rate of the social media user in the UK is likely to
increase to 62.46 percent by the end of 2022 (Chaffey 2016).
The most accessed social network in the UK is Facebook, which is used by 70.88% of the
population in the UK. The second social network on hype is the twitter with 10.79% of the users
in the UK (Silverman 2016).

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Figure: Data showing the market share of the social networking sites in the UK as of January
2018 (Kim and Hastak 2018).
Figure: Screenshot showing the market share of the social media sites in the UK as of January
2018

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Observation
The usage of social media in journalism, education as well as marketing is widely
witnessed in the recent times. Considering the number of users of these social media sites,
nothing can serve as a better platform to reach out to masses to convey news or information. The
platform also serves as a platform to unite for a common cause. Apart from this, Social media is
of utmost importance for educational purposes as well. In the present date, some universities and
schools upload their lectures on Youtube as well as Facebook, thus making easy availability of
the study material for the students' convenience (Ashley and Tuten 2015). Social media network
can also serve as a platform for organizing campaigns as well as marketing. Such campaigns
reach out to the maximum number of people thus making the strategy a success.
It is observed that the "shot on iPhone" campaign is expanded to various social media
platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Considering the total number of users of
Twitter worldwide, launching this campaign on Twitter can be considered as a healthy idea. The
number of retweets and posts regarding the campaign has only popularized this campaign more
effectively (Wamba and Carter 2016). There are millions of Twitter users worldwide, thus
launching in a campaign related to a newly launched product can reach out to the maximum
number of people (Wamba and Carter 2016). It is found that the twitter flooded with the "shot on
iPhone " hashtags. Twitter has also been a useful platform for gathering news to learning about
the new trends and Apple took this advantage of Twitter to launch its showcase its camera
features.
The initiative of Apple Inc to launch this campaign on Instagram has also proved to be a success.
Instagram is such a platform where people across the globe appreciate and share their
photographic skills. Extending this campaign to Instagram has enabled people to appreciate the

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new features of the iPhone camera. Considering the statistical report, regarding the social media
usage in the UK, it can be said that the number of Instagram users is much less compared to that
of Facebook and Twitter (Duggan and Brenner 2013). Thus, Twitter has helped the campaign to
reach out to more number of people compared to that of Instagram.
Figure: Screenshot depicting the number of Instagram users in the UK
The results of this campaign were also witnessed on Facebook. Although, the Apple Inc did not
take much initiative to officially launch this campaign on the Facebook but its effect was visible
in certain posts. People shared the world gallery pictures, certain pages and groups were also
created by the Facebook users. It is observed that in the UK major numbers of active users of
social media sites are Facebook users. Considering this fact, if the campaign was officially
launched on Facebook, the campaign could have got more exposure compared to that of Twitter
and Instagram (Hudson et al. 2016).

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Figure: Screenshot depicting the number of Facebook users in the UK (Perrin 2015).
Recommendation
Considering the statistical researchers regarding the number of users of the various social
networking sites it can be said that, if the campaign is extended to Facebook with much more
initiative the campaign could have been much successful. Other than Facebook, Instagram and
Twitter, the campaign could have been expanded to other social networking sites such as
Youtube. Creation of a Youtube channel related to the campaign could have also helped in
reaching out to more number of people (Hudson et al. 2016). Improvement could have been
made in the campaign plan. A number of the shot on iPhone pictures could have been selected
for display in the world gallery; this could have created more enthusiasm among the people.
Other campaigning strategies such as gifts or offers for the best shot could have also helped in
gaining more attention of the people. The observations suggest that the more advertisements

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regarding the campaign, advertisements that could increase the attention of more number of
peoples could have been a good idea. Apart from this, considering the percentage of different age
groups present in the social media sites. Apple could have created different themes for different
age groups for the “shotoniPhhone” campaign. Specific themes such as wildlife photography,
scenery, and wedding photography could have been given for the campaign (Duggan and
Brenner 2013). This, in turn, would have showcased how the iPhone camera could capture
different types of pictures with the same precision. Other than this celebrity participation would
have also helped in the making the campaign more popular among the mass.

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