3 Ways Nike Can Succeed on Social Media

In my previous post, I talked about what Nike was doing right and wrong on Twitter. Nike as a whole isn’t using any of these platforms perfectly, and there is obviously room to grow on social media. They have a lot of positives in terms of content, however, in terms of interaction and frequency there has to be improvements. The list of ways Nike can improve can be broken up into 3 methods:

1. More interaction with audience.
2. Increase frequency of social media posts.
3. Continue to produce inspirational content.

As a whole, Nike never interacts with their audience. This is an easy thing that they can be doing in order to build that relationship with their audience. I haven’t seen Nike respond to a comment on any of the big 3 platforms, those being Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Sprout Social says that engagement is one of the 5 key factors to successful social media reach. This is an area where Nike is obviously lacking, and responding to comments would bridge the gap from the perception of them being this big corporation, to a company that truly cares about each and every customer.

2. Too Big To Fail?

Another problem with Nike on Social Media is their posting frequency. On average they post about once every week or so. That is simply not enough for a company of their magnitude. In my opinion, there is no justification as to why they should not at least be posting every other day. Meltwater says that companies should be posting 10 times/day on Twitter, on average. If you are this big of a company you should be able to put together a powerful enough marketing team that can still generate meaningful content, while also improving on the frequency of those posts.

3. The Wow Factor

An area that Nike needs to stay consistent with is their incredible content. While other best practices may be lacking, Nike’s content is the core to their entire social media campaign. Whether it is commercial, photos, or articles, Nike finds a way to make their audience feel empowered and inspired. They almost have an expectation now that whenever you see that a Nike commercial is on TV, you are going to be left with a “WOW.” You can see in the Twitter post below that Nike not only posts about the groundbreaking accomplishments of their sponsored athletes, but they love to throw in some motivation for you as well. This is something I really admire about Nike, and to me it shows that they really live by their mission statement (Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world).

What Does It All Mean?

Are they posting enough? No! Are they engaging with the audience? No! However, are they producing world class content? Most definitely. So, Nike has some work to do in terms of posting more on a day to day basis and responding to comments. But, they need to hang their hat on the idea that they inspire so many athletes around the world, with the quality of their content. Overall, Nike has some work to do, but lets not get it twisted, they do some things that I did not think were possible. Let me know what you guys think, either positive/negative in the comments.