Select a product line of products or brand from a company of

Select a product, line of products, or brand from a company of your choice and research the company’s social media marketing strategies. Carefully examine the social media presence for the product. In an analysis (750-1,000 words), identify how the company utilizes social media to promote the product. Address the following in your analysis:

What is the customer segment for this particular product, line of products, or brand?

Which social media outlets does the company use to reach the customer segment? Discuss elements of their campaign.

Examine the customer segment’s response to the company’s social media marketing (e.g., through evaluating user-generated content related to the campaign, sales data for particular products, etc.). Based on that response, how effective are the company’s social media marketing strategies?

Compare the company’s social media strategies to one of its major competitors. What does the company do well to distinguish itself and product(s)/brand?

Finally, recommend two specific strategies for how the company could more effectively utilize social media to better target its customer segment and increase its competitive advantage in the market.

Support your ideas and findings with descriptions of specific social media campaign examples and consumer and market research.

Solution

I would like to select a company Nike - an American multinational corporation that is engaged in the design, development, manufacturing and worldwide marketing and sales of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services.

Nike is one of the world’s biggest brands and they have a huge following on social media.

Nike+(plus) :-

Nike has it\'s own social network Nike+(plus).

Since 2010, Nike has developed a range of training products that are digitally linked using the Nike+ FuelBand. Users can then accumulate ‘NikeFuel’ points and set themselves goals or compete against other users

Instagram :-

Nike has really strengthened its brand on Instagram. Nike’s content is always really high quality and befitting with their brand image, that encourages high energy activity and adventure.

I think that good visual content goes a long way and it seems to be working for Nike as they have 33.5 million followers on there.

They have developed a number of brand hashtags, including their trademark #justdoit, as well as #nikewomen to support their ongoing campaign to empower women in sport and others specific to products or events, such as #airmaxday.

Twitter :-

It has 5.7 Million followers on Twitter.

As Nike has grown as a brand, they have branched out into a number of departments, catering for specific sports and setting up new ventures, such as their mobile fitness apps ‘Nike+ Fit Club’ and ‘Nike+ Running.’

For this reason, Nike have a multitude of Twitter accounts representing each of the different sports they have involvement in (e.g. @NikeFootball) for different regions where they have their largest market bases (@NikeNYC), an account specifically for women and also one offering support to athletes from other athletes.

They don’t post as frequently as I expected on the main Nike account, posting just once every day or two, which is surprising considering their high number of followers on there and high profile of the brand.

When they do tweet, their posts are brief and tend to be sentence-long motivational statements, most with the hashtag of their catchphrase “JustDoIt.” Despite the simplicity of these tweets, they generally receive a couple of thousand retweets and favourites. The majority of content on the @Nike account is made up of retweets from all of their other accounts and I feel that the purpose of the account has become a centre for Nike followers to receive the highlights from all Nike departments:

The Nike UK account shares much more of their own content, from new products, to information about Nike run sporting events; although, they too only post about once a day.

Where Nike really excel on Twitter is their interaction with followers and they respond to nearly every mention they receive on the platform with advice and fun responses that will make the consumers feel valued.

The sports feed are also good at responding to @mentions, though not to the same level as the Nike.com or Support accounts. For example, the Nike Football feed is on hand to give out training advice, product information or encouragement to other users.

Similarly, Nike Running responds to a huge number of people to discuss their training schedule and give motivational advice.

Personally I’m a big fan of Nike’s Twitter strategy and would like to see more brands adopt a similar approach. It would obviously require a sizeable investment, but it goes a long way in turning customers into brand advocates.

For example, if you’ve just bought a pair of Nike football boots and the brand then personally responds to you with training advice and a few words of encouragement, then you’re definitely going to consider that brand when you buy sports products in future and may even recommend them to your friends.

Facebook :-

Nike have their largest and longest standing following on Facebook, with 23,000,000 followers.

In terms of content, however, they do not actually post that frequently, posting just a couple of times a month.

Like on Twitter, they have multiple Nike accounts on Facebook and I found that the smaller specialised pages are more active than the key account.

Like on Twitter, they have multiple Nike accounts on Facebook and I found that the smaller specialised pages are more active than the key account.

Pinterest :-

Nike has clearly researched the demographic profile of the average Pinterest user, as the only account it has established is for Nike Women. It has 140 K followers.

Google + :-

As far as I can tell Nike only has one official Google+ page and it gives it the bare minimum of attention.

It is updated around once per week and all of the content is repurposed from Facebook. As with most brands the level of interaction with the posts is extremely limited, with each one attracting a few hundred +1s and tens of comments.

Overall it’s fairly uninspiring, but no worse than most of the other Google+ pages I’ve looked at as part of this series of posts.

Considering the amount of athletes that Nike has on its payroll, it should try to take advantage of G+\'s unique features by hosting hangouts and Q&As.

Like on Twitter, Nike are really good at responding to comments from followers and they make the effort to write back to nearly every person who writes on the page, whether it is in response to a purchase enquiry or just a general remark about a post.

At the moment much of the content is around Nike’s “Be Mercurial” campaign to promote its Mercurial Vapor IX boots, including video clips of personalised boots that customers have bought online through NIKEID.

Finally, I would like to recommend the following 2 strategies for Nike :-

1) Attention to Google+ :-

It should give more attention to Google+ as it is having only one official page right now and it should be updated daily.

2) Post frequently on Facebook :-

As facebook is the largest and the most important social media nowadays, it should pay more attention to its facebook page.  However, they do not actually post that frequently, posting just a couple of times a month.

According to the market research, the companies should take advantage of Facebook as much as possible as the number of facebook users are more than any other social media.