To give you some context, I had reposted my "How is Social CRM different from Social Media Marketing?" (which is in itself a repost of a comment on a blog post called "Just what is Social CRM anyway?") in our internal blogs. The above question was part of a comment to that post.

So, I know that Apple makes great products, provides great customer experience, provides value in use, understands customer jobs & thus produces some great intuitive interfaces, has a great ecosystem for its products (iTunes, Apps) that extend its utility even further, have value proposition for not just themselves or their customers but also their suppliers, distributors, etc in the ecosystem. And very importantly, has a great fan base. Evidently has many of the characteristics of a Social Business.

OTOH, Apple discourages employee blogging, sued some of its biggest fans in the past (5 yrs back that is), is very tight fisted when it comes to information leaks, does not engage with its community (update: as Mark points out, Apple does have a support community on its site, however, by community here I mean in generic terms). So definitely not using social media to broadcast or engage.

Also, I do know that Steve Jobs does a very great job at Apple's keynotes & also personally goes into the stores on launch day for a direct dip stick analysis of how his products do. These are good old ways of getting the pulse of the customers & blasting back the corporate message. No?

So, is Apple using Social CRM? What do you think?