Sports are an inherently social activity, so brands like Nike are a natural fit when it

comes to social media marketing.

To find out how the sports giant makes the most of this opportunity, I thought it would be
interesting to see how it uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.

Facebook
Like most global brands Nike has separate Facebook pages for each of its product
categories. This includes golf, snowboarding and FuelBand, as well as two football
pages one for the American version of the sport and one for the version everyone else
in the world plays.
As far as I can tell the latter actually has the most fans of any of the Nike pages
(17.2m), followed by the main corporate account (12.3m) and American football (2.4m).
Most of the dedicated sports pages are updated on a daily basis with videos or images,
while the corporate page is updated about once a week.
The social teams are obviously lucky in that they have a huge number of athletes
around whom they can create and share content, so the global football page displays a
huge amount of content featuring the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Andres Iniesta, as
well as a lot of product-related posts.
At the moment much of the content is around Nikes Be Mercurial campaign to
promote its Mercurial Vapor IX boots, including video clips of personalised boots that
customers have bought online through NIKEID.
Interestingly the product-related content appears to get more interactions than posts
featuring players, with one photo gallery of new boots attracting more than 35,000 likes
and almost 1,000 comments.
Similarly, the American football page is updated several times per week with a focus on
athletes and products.

Nike is well known for running major branding campaigns, so its Facebook pages dont
feature the smaller competitions and sales promotions that were used to seeing from
consumer brands.
Instead it uses its social channels to cross-promote larger marketing campaigns, such
as the #MyTimeIsNow initiative that it ran last year during the European
Championships.
Twitter

As with Facebook, Nike has individual feeds for its subsidiary brands,
including golf,basketball, FuelBand, Nike.com and football.
For each of the feeds the focus is very much on responding to @mentions rather than
pushing out marketing messages, and the rate at which some of the more popular
accounts respond to users is quite astounding.
For example, the Nike.com feed (766,000 followers) responds to more than 100 tweets
per day regarding order queries, stock information and product details.
It ranks alongside ASOS as one of the most active customer service feeds Ive seen so
far, and on top of that the sports brand also operates a Nike Support feed to resolve
product questions and technical needs. This dedicated customer service feed also
answers hundreds of questions per day.

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 Im a big fan of Nikes 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 youve 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 youre definitely going to consider that brand when you buy sports products in
future and may even recommend them to your friends.

Nike has also achieved some notable successes by using Twitter as a central tool in its
marketing campaigns. During the London Olympics it managed to outshine official
sponsor Adidas with a massive billboard and social campaign around the capital.

Nike eschewed the usual celebrity endorsements in a campaign that celebrated

everyday athletes. It bought up hundreds of billboards around the city featuring the
hashtag #findgreatness.
Adidas, which spent tens of millions of pounds to be an official sponsor, ran a campaign
featuring Team GB athletes and the hashtag #takethestage.
According to Socialbakers CheerMeter there were more than 16,000 tweets associating
Nike with the word Olympic between 27 July and 2 August compared to 9,295 for
Adidas.
Furthermore. Nike attracted 166,718 new Facebook fans during the Games versus
80,761 for Adidas.
Data from Experian Hitwise shows that Nike achieved a 6% growth in its number of
Facebook fans and a 77% boost in engagement on its Facebook page compared to 2%
and 59% respectively for Adidas.
But while that was certainly a social success, Nike also got its wrists slapped by the
Advertising Standards Authority last year after footballers Wayne Rooney and Jack
Wilshere tweeted marketing messages without stating that they had been paid by Nike
to do so.
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 created 10 boards and amassed a respectable 9,900 followers, however all of its
pins are product related and link back to official Nike websites.

Nike isnt alone in only pinning its own content John Lewis also applies this tactic
but personally I think its a missed opportunity.
Pinterest is a great opportunity to develop the brand identity and create pinboards that
reflect the companys values, but Nike is essentially using it as an extension of its
product catalogue.
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 its fairly uninspiring, but no worse than most of the other Google+ pages Ive
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.
Nike+

Not only does Nike do a decent job of marketing itself using the four main social
networks, but it has also taken the time to establish its own unique social platform
through Nike+.
It now has more than six million members that use it an average of three times per
week.
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.
It has proved to be a hugely successful product for Nike as it taps into the social aspect
of sports by allowing users to track their progress using an iPhone app and share their
progress online.
There are dedicated Facebook and Twitter accounts for NikeFuel which are tied into the
#MakeItCount hashtag.
It also allows Nike to run novel campaigns, such as the Fuel your team initiative that
currently allows users to show support for their favourite basketball team by earning
them NikeFuel points.
Having used a Nike FuelBand before I feel the product is a victory for marketing over
usability, but even so it means Nike has a product and a social network that millions of
people use on a daily basis which is an extremely powerful tool for driving brand loyalty.

Anova:
Single
Factor
SUMMARY
Groups

Count

Column 1

33

Column 2

33

Column 3

33

ANOVA

Sum
6134
00
2233
2
2840
43

Avera
ge
18587.
88
676.72
73
8607.3
64

Varian
ce
5.94E
+08
51971
4.2
3.31E
+08

Source of
Variation
Between
Groups
Within
Groups

SS
5.32E
+09
2.96E
+10

Total

3.49E
+10

df
2
96

MS
2.66E
+09
3.09E
+08

F
8.6158
24

Pvalue
0.0003
62

F crit
3.0911
91

98

NIKE
Shares

Post
NoS

Post Name

Feature Used

Likes

Commen
ts

Story of athlete

Video

15000

709

2702

2
3
4

Video
video
Pictures

9100
9400
8100

317
347
238

3005
1512
383

5
6

Scout Bassett
The End
Brilliant as
individuals
Mo Farah
Success is failing

Video
Video

3500
12000

122
288

307
1940

Limits

Video

2400

595

6281

Reach

120000
0
441000
505000
269847
42
192000
140000
0
250000

8
9
10
11
12

Allyson Felix
No age limit
Shelly Ann
English Gardner
Simone Biles

Video
Video
Video
Video
Video

3600
83000
2000
2700
49000

106
3320
74
64
743

256
92630
156
235
9051

13

Unlimited together

Video

88000

1562

27015

14
15
16

Gabby's greatness
Your limits
finding your limits

Video
Video
Video

4100
24000
66000

64
638
1704

266
5148
29254

17
18

Unlimited Rory
Champions arent
born
Kevin hart to ypur
senera williams
Hard Simone Biles
Stand as one

Video
Video

4600
14000

320
730

1552
11687

0
325000
83000
82000
87000
240000
0
850000
0
319000
200000
530000
0
399000
792000

Video

2700

222

247

126000

Video
Pictures

13000
8200

317
203

5153
760

Video

58000

1120

10090

Video
Video

3700
2600

187
177

1669
405

25
26

will power of
champion
Ashton eaton
Allyson truly
fearless
Fraser Pryce
always believe

449000
269847
42
310000
0
220000
96000

Video
Video

1600
55000

135
1674

192
46819

27
28
29

sparkbrilliance
gold medalist
NJR * JJORDAN

Video
Video
Pictures

15000
2100
7300

1513
198
340

7217
418
667

30
31

kobe's last game

Revolution in motion

Video
Video

16000
18000

1832
858

12711
3066

32
33

Lunar epic
another running
shoe

Video
Video

7200
2500

1228
387

1073
176

Average

18587.87
879

676.7272
727

8607.36
364

19
20
21
22
23
24

MEAN LIKES :

18587.87879

38000
270000
0
390000
52000
269847
42
775000
190000
0
226000
2500

MEAN COMMENTS : 676.72727

MEAN SHARES:

8607.363