In the eternal war of the giant tech brands, Facebook and Apple may not always see eye to eye. But the two monoliths find ways to capitalize on each other’s platforms; Facebook, through its mobile app for iPhone, and Apple, through an impressively prolific use of Facebook brand pages.

At the forefront of Apple’s Facebook presence is its page for iTunes. With over 23 million fans, the multimedia store software is number 12 on the top 15 most popular brands on Facebook, sandwiched between Sony PlayStation and Skittles.

The only other music brand to crack the top 20 is MTV, which, one could argue, is not so much about music as it is about other types of programming (see: The Jersey Shore).

iTunes presences for other countries, e.g. Canada, Germany, and “Nordics,” as Apple calls Scandinavia, each get their own pages. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, Facebook shows that Bangkok, Thailand, is the city with the most iTunes page fans. Less surprisingly, the most strongly represented age demographic is 18-24.

Like all things Apple, the iTunes page is design-oriented, at least as design-oriented as a page can be within the rigid constraints of Facebook’s Timeline format. Still, Apple finds a way to make their ethos of appealing, clean visuals shine through.

For instance, a recent post highlights the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine movie, complete with a mini-album of four psychedelic illustrations.

It also relies heavily on the landscape image functionality available on Timeline, posting wide, editorial-quality photos of recognizable artists both past and present: an artistic portrait of chart-topping Gotye; a vivid action shot of famed guitarist Slash.

But while the content is visually engaging, calls to action are a bit less memorable; perhaps a symptom of the general risk aversion of large multinational brands. Polls prompt users to answer questions like “What’s your favorite hit on the latest Now That’s What I Call Music album?” and open questions to fans seem safe — see “What does Memorial Day mean to you?”

Additionally, because iTunes multimedia must be purchased within the iTunes interface itself, clicks on page content lead directly to a browser request to open the program. It’s a user experience that was intuitive when iTunes was far and away the primary software for music listening, but in today’s world of streaming, it’s an added step.

Driving fans to iTunes is a logical step, but leaving Facebook not for another website but for a desktop app seems unusual.

What the page lacks in actionable items, though, it makes up for in static content. In addition to using Timeline to share photos, iTunes’ timeline is also peppered with milestones in the most traditional sense of the word.

A screenshot of an older version of iTunes accompanies a post regarding a milestone from 2003: the day that iTunes launched. Later on, the milestones become more self-referential; custom art celebrates the 20,000,000th fan — a feat that was accomplished in February, which means that in the past few months iTunes has accrued another couple million likes.

Despite the dual constraints of a staunchly controlled platform — Facebook — and a tightly monitored brand — Apple — the iTunes Facebook page finds a way to bring a bit of the unexpected to its page, whether through custom creative designed with Apple sensibility, or on the other extreme, the occasional Elvis fan photo.

It goes to show that a little creativity on the part of established brands can go a long way.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

With nearly 5 million followers, Google is a Twitter behemoth, bumping elbows with LeBron James and CNN on the list of the top 100 Twitter accounts.

The main Google Twitter account is only the head of an empire comprised of dozens of sub-brands, providing a window into the coordination behind Google’s overarching social and community management strategies.

From YouTube, which has, in fact, eclipsed Google in terms of number of Twitter followers (with more than 14 million) down to brands like the much more obscure and technical Google Cloud Print (7,000 followers), these reaches of the empire maintain their own Twitter presences.

Act on it

Twitter is inherently a place for brand-building. But that doesn’t mean brands can’t try to get more tangible benefits from tweets, too.

With very rare exceptions, almost every one of @Google’s tweets includes a link to some sort of actionable item, be it a blog post to read, a Google doodle to check out, or even a different Twitter account under the Google brand umbrella to follow.

Newsworthy events are presented with a link to the press release or blog post that explains more. This keeps the Twitter feed informative yet readable — it doesn’t try to explain the full story in 140-character installations.

A concise sentence introducing a link with more context and content gives interested users something clear to retweet — and they do. The message announcing Google Drive was retweeted over 3,000 times.

And apart from retweets, Google gets a lot of attention on the platform. According to Mashable, Google is the most tweeted-about brand on Twitter with the exception of Twitter itself.

Cross-promote, but delicately

By our count, in the past several months Google has retweeted only one account external to the organization. That’s right: Justin Bieber (the tweet in question referred to YouTube).

On the main account Google uses retweets pretty much solely to promote other Google products. They also frequently @mention to cross-promote.

The @Google stream is a healthy mix of updates regarding hard technology, social initiatives, press coverage, consumer tech, and business-to-business tips. About a month ago, they promoted Google Wallet’s new Twitter account. Today, Google Wallet has more than 10,000 followers. Not a bad start.

Interact strategically

On the main Google stream, followers are not addressed. That’s what its support forums are for — same goes for YouTube. Away from the main @Google stage, though, Google has a small army of team members running its community management efforts.

Smaller Google brands do use Twitter as a place to interact with customers. Google Wallet is a prime example. The Wallet team often @replies to complaints with their apologies and a customer service phone number.

With multiple brands under one umbrella, it can be tricky to keep social media presences streamlined, particularly on Twitter. The way in which Google’s network of products interacts provides a model for companies large and small looking to maintain one main account and a host of sub-accounts.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

He’s the perfect archetype of a 21st century content creator: He uses multiple media and platforms, he builds the ideas of others but also generates his own, and he finds inspiration in both the purely editorial and the commercial.

Given his position squarely at the nexus of a host of trends in the current world of content, it was interesting to read a recent blog post of his in which he dissects what he sees as a frequently arising debate: content creation vs. content curation.

Three questions no one is asking

He asks three question that he says no one is really asking in this heavily curated age:

1. Is curation actually valuable, and do we have proof that it is, or is not?
2. Does curation actually have a viable business model? And should it?
3. Who is a curator?

In the last paragraph of the post, Armstrong writes that “the people I know who ’curate’ are also writers, editors, bloggers and publishers.” That is to say the line between creator and curator is becoming increasingly blurred. So, too, is the line between brand and publisher: simply turn to Visual.ly or Pinterest for examples of the former acting as the latter.

What is it that caused these lines to become so fuzzy? It comes down to a question of platform. Before mass adoption of social platforms, a blogger’s main task was to populate his own site and wait for, as Armstrong mentions, the “aggregator” sites to compile everything. Brands were a step removed on the content food chain: they had to take actions that would lead to the bloggers writing about them (hopefully in a positive way), and then wait for the aggregators to pick up those blog posts.

Today, the distinction between brand and publication is, in many forums, all but gone. It is up to brands to decide how editorial they are willing to become, and, conversely, up to editorial outlets how commercial they are willing to become. The platform is democratic—it’s how you use it that becomes interesting.

Does curation build trust?

Still, one might argue that there are limitations to what a brand can achieve through curation, rather than creating content. Can brands build trust as curators, and, if so, is it even valuable for them to do so?

With great power of distribution comes greater responsibility, or, at least, greater potential risk and reward.

As Libby Brittain, director of editorial development at fast-growing startup Branch, put it: “It’s one thing to use the social web superficially as a marketing channel, which often goes hand in hand with giving employees overly strict usage guidelines and lots of canned marketing copy. It’s quite another to embrace social in a meaningful way and to realize that the individual online presence of your employees — especially senior management — will say more about your company than marketing copy ever would or could.”

The art of catching and not letting go

Brittain’s point is well taken. It’s not just the brand itself that has a voice, it’s also the people who speak, directly or indirectly, on the brand’s behalf. In that sense, Armstrong’s point holds just as true to brands as it does to bloggers. They’re all just people, trying to catch and hold the attention of other people. Whether that’s through developing and sharing one’s one content, or artfully repackaging and commentating on that of another, individuality and perspective are what matter.

And brands that get this right, or allow their employees to get this right, are often the ones that gain the most devoted followings—look no further than Tony Hsieh and Zappos, for whom the distinction between spokesperson and brand is nearly nonexistent.

The opportunity to create and to curate is available to all, brands and publishers alike. And in the interest of building an engaged audience, perhaps the best approach is to shift focus away from classifying what one it is that one does, and to turn it towards doing it better.

Image courtesy of Zurbagan/shutterstock, qvist/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

This is the motto Kate Spade New York has adopted in the recent past, a far cry from the black, boxy handbags that were unrelentingly ubiquitous at the turn of the millenium.

It’s a call to arms around adopting a lifestyle – one that encompasses apparel, shoes, accessories, stationery, and home decor – boldly splashed with stripes, polka dots, and traditionally feminine detailing with a modern twist.

In creating its digital presence, Kate Spade has managed to convert the je ne sais quoi of its meticulously designed physical visual merchandising (read: eye-catching store windows in SoHo and on Fifth Avenue) and products into a decidedly on-brand experience. Using its blog, which is integrated prominently into its main e-commerce site, as well as varied social media presences, the Kate Spade team has developed and maintained a voice and visual point of view that reinforce the brand while avoiding heavy-handedness.

Here’s a look at how Kate Spade’s digital team embraces some of the key best practices of digital content marketing.

Integrating Self-Promotion with Content Curation

All too often, brands fall victim to the content marketing pitfall of highlighting only their own milestones, products, and customer interactions, creating streams of content that seem stale and retrospective. Kate Spade wisely combines its own items with other delicately curated selections in order to promote its overall message. For instance, after a colorful year in 2011, Kate Spade has declared 2012 the year of the pattern. Accordingly, its 2012 spring collection relies heavily on stripes. So, it has chosen to feature stripes this month, creating content like this collage (as partially pictured above), which highlights Kate Spade items, like black pumps with striped heels, as well as non-Kate Spade items, ranging from vintage prints to a photo of Mick Jagger in a striped shirt. This makes its content feel like a standalone offering rather than a direct extension of its e-commerce site.

Maintaining Themes Across Different Platforms

When Kate Spade picks a direction, it goes with it, and all its content channels reinforce the same seasonal focus. It utilizes that same collage-like approach for its boards on Pinterest, which is perhaps the most well-suited platform for fashion brands to share its inspirations, and the pattern du jour, stripes, abounds. The Kate Spade Tumblr (also organized as a collage) takes the theme one step further, providing the shareable added bonus of downloadable iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, and computer desktops in –you guessed it – stripes. And, of course, Kate Spade’s Twitter page is decked out in a striped background.

With this strategy, users have a consistent experience when visiting any digital or physical outpost of Kate Spade, deepening the connection to that season’s chosen looks.

Adding Individuality Without Compromising Brand Identity

The social media manager in charge of @katespadeny maintains a personal voice without coming across as an actual individual – a feat easier said than done in the corporate world. For instance, Kate Spade tweets frequently deal with specific events, like dining at a particular restaurant or seeing a Broadway show, but a constant and professional identity is upheld. In keeping with its highly visual brand, Instagram photos often appear frequently, but the tweeters are never the subjects of those photos.

On the blog as well, individuals play a key role, but there are no bylines or personalities associated with posts. Instead, it’s the Creative Director Deborah Lloyd or Bravo TV darling Brad Goreski (a stylist for KSNY) who get the limelight. This is an interesting approach; one that allows for a collective voice that doesn’t rely on one specific writer but avoids feeling stuffy and overly PR-spun.

Kate Spade’s offerings to the fashion and accessories world have evolved over the past decade, and the products it puts out into the marketplace reflect a clear and carefully edited focus on its audience and aesthetic. In reflecting on its online content, it’s refreshing to find the same level of finesse.

Images courtesy of Kate Spade

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently