Few weeks back Apple launched its iphone 6, 6+,
Apple watch and Apple Pay. I’m sure most of
you must have tuned to Twitter and
Apple’s live streaming to get real time updates on the announcement.
That’s how we have started consuming news, breaking news or any big
announcements happening across the globe. Isn’t it? We love to share
interesting news, stories and engage with the community.
But I guess the biggest search giant thinks otherwise!
AndroidOne – the launch without a social strategy
On a lovely Monday morning, Google was all set to host firm’s first
global launch in India - AndroidOne. The
idea behind launching AndroidOne was to cement Google's position in the
low-cost smartphone segment for the "next billion" users, especially
in developing countries like India.
Like any other big event, I assume that the pressure on Google India and
the top down hierarchy was to ensure the event went smoothly and everything was
perfect! Needless to say, making sure all top media/bloggers attended the event
and got the firm the coverage it deserved for hosting their first global launch
in the country.
Amidst all the madness, in my opinion, little did anyone think of a well
planned social media strategy. Like every tech enthusiast, I glued to my
Twitter feed to check updates on the announcement.
While everyone excitedly went on tweeting on their way to the event and
anticipated Google’s announcement, it actually fumed the journalists/bloggers
when they reached inside the venue and got to know that the event was under
embargo and no one in the room could share any live updates/information on
social platforms.
How can you possibly stop everyone in the room from
sharing updates without any prior notice of an embargo?
The event which started by noon was under embargo till 2:30 PM and the
sale for AndroidOne products was slated to start from 3:30 PM on e-commerce
websites including Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart.
It did amaze me when I started reading the tweets from media and I
wasn’t really sure whether the launch is going to be a success or will the
embargo kill the excitement around the launch.
Here’s a sneak peek of what the media/bloggers/netizens had to say:
Interestingly, Economictimes.com had a live blog just
for the event and by the tweets I read, it seemed like Google never informed
the journalist about the embargo.
A new Twitter handle for AndroidOne India was launched post the announcement - @AndroidOneIn. It attracted few thousand followers within minutes and as of writing there are 3943 followers. There were few tweets on @GoogleIndia handle post the launch event as well.
I’d love to know your thoughts in the comment section below!
A new Twitter handle for AndroidOne India was launched post the announcement - @AndroidOneIn. It attracted few thousand followers within minutes and as of writing there are 3943 followers. There were few tweets on @GoogleIndia handle post the launch event as well.
In fact the next day, all the newspapers were flooded with launch news
and interview of the spokesperson and it surely did make for an amazing offline
PR activity.
However, In my humble opinion, this was a social media disaster. Do you
feel being one of the biggest tech companies in the world, the positive
announcement overpowered the negative tweets that went online?
Do you think Google wanted to set apart its social strategy from Apple?
I’d love to know your thoughts in the comment section below!
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