During this month’s Apple Event, when Apple announced new product releases for the world to drool over, Twitter felt more like a farmers market than a social media platform. As a Project Fi advocate, images of a sleek phone with a technicolor screen didn’t do much for me. What did catch my attention was Apple’s use of Twitter advertising strategies to promote and ultimately own their #AppleEvent.

Apple’s Paid Media Wins   

The most impressive aspect of their recent media push was their paid strategy. Instead of buying placements across multiple platforms, they picked one digital platform that’s highly relevant to tech lovin’ early adopters and focused their paid social efforts there. According to Digiday, they purchased a promoted trend, “like a reminder” custom placement and promoted tweets. This single platform focus demonstrates confidence in both their audience and the platform, which is prime advertising real estate for events, trends and conversations.

They also took time to create promoted tweets in 12 different languages, like the example below. This further indicates that they know their target audiences and want to connect with them through a relatable experience.

Apple’s Owned Media Misses  

In my opinion, a big missed opportunity for Apple was its continued organic silence on Twitter. They have never tweeted and an #AppleEvent didn’t change that organic strategy. Over the years, organic social media content has seen a decline in reach, causing a decrease in engagements. Typically when we run digital advertising campaigns, we see an increase in profile traffic and engagement, indicating that the most engaged members of the audience want a place where they can engage with a brand immediately after seeing an ad. By not tweeting organically, Apple missed out on organic reach and engaging with superfan conversations.

Apple’s Earned Media Love

Last week’s paid strategies directly impacted their earned media love. Promoting a trend was a brilliant idea, which gave #AppleEvent extra exposure and probably greatly impacted usage and engagement, like this user’s tweet:

What did you think of Apple’s Twitter takeover last week? Did it inspire you to join the conversation, or better yet, pre-order an iPhone XS? Let me know in the comments below!

Olivia Ward is a Director of Digital Strategy at CenterTable, where she creates digital marketing strategies that make client dreams come true. She has more than 10 years of experience helping brands find and target their audience IRL and digitally.