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Recommendations for Nike's Social Media

• Nike should improve how much they post across all social media platforms. For example, sharing stories of athletes of all types have to help Adidas boost their engagement ratesUtilizeise influencer marketing, the current global influencer marketing platform is valued at $4.6 billion. It has been projected to grow 25% annually until 2025 (Grand View Research 2021). 

• Nike should post more IGTVs and live; the best time to post these are Monday to Thursday from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm. Wednesdays, there is a chance for gaining the highest engagement with a probability of 68% at 8:00 pm (Hashtagie 2021).

• Holding competitions/ giveaways for followers on Twitter and Instagram should also be adapted into Nike's strategy as it has worked very well for competitors.

• Engaging more with followers on Twitter by responding to tweets or posting interactive polls makes followers feel involved with Nike's brand.

 

See Appendix 2 for further long-term goals.

 

Top Three Post Analysis

Nike's Instagram Audit

 

Content  

• Strong themes of inclusivity and women empowerment portrayed throughout Nike's Instagram shows their attempt to reduce inequality and reflect Nike's brand personality. 

• Nike: A black community commitment 

• Images produced the highest average engagement,      followed by a carousel and video. (Figure 24) 

Engagement  

• Nike Engagement rates are much lower on average (0.25% to 0.55%); however, the interaction is generally higher than Adidas. 

• Only one in six top posts outperformed Adidas in terms of engagement compared to the corresponding ranked posts. (Figure 25).

• Evidence suggests that Nike needs to increase their engagement rates to maintain a more substantial online presence than Adidas.  

Followers  

• Nike has maintained consistent follower growth on Instagram (2.4%), reinforcing the strength of Nike's brand (Figures 26&27).

• Nike has a much larger following than its competitors, 144m followers to Adidas's 25.9m followers. (Figure 26).

• Nike has a much larger reach, meaning they have a more significant potential for impressions reducing the CPM of a marketing project. Nike can expect to achieve better ROI through a reduced CPM than its competitors. 

Mentions 

• Nike has mentioned all photographers in each of their top 3 posts (Figure 23). This provides those that submit photos for Nike's Instagram incentive to develop their own personal profiles as they will be sure to gain followers as a result. This gives Nike a freeway way of attaining content. 

 

Nike's Twitter Audit

Content: 

·       Praising every pregnant mother has excellent perseverance, achieving high engagement (67,338). Utilize the celebrity effect to pay attention to the climate solutions. 

 

·       Compared to the date before the 10th of March, the percentage of tweets growth decreased 33.33% from 11th of March to 28th of April. (Figure 29) 

·       Research shows that Nike focuses on video content rather than a link, and the engagement per tweet is 17,418.25, which is much higher than the engagement of Adidas. (Figure 30).

 

Engagement: 

·       SEMrush (2021) shows that posts' likes receive the most engagement, against the retweets and replies. 

· Nike's total engagement rate is 0.820%, and Adidas's total engagement rate is 0.530%. (Figure 25) 

·       The engagement growth rate on Nike has decreased 44.44%; however, the growth rate on Adidas rockets to 676.44%. (Figure 32).

 

Followers: 

·       Nike has risen 1.32% follower growth, with 110,418 followers' change; Adidas has registered a steady growth (1.29%), with 49,905 followers change. (Figure 32 & 33). 

Mentions: 

·       The Chart of Mentioners of Nike (Appendix 34 & 35).

·       The Chart of Mentioners of Adidas (Appendix 36 & 37).

·       Adidas Hashtags are more than in Nike, and the engagement of Adidas is higher than that of Nike. 

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Adidas Instagram Audit

Content 

·        Adidas portray their ethicality through their sustainability and social support in their content. (#Blacklivesmatter#endplasticwaste).

·       Adidas have a wider variety of content types in their top 3 posts, including video. 

Engagement  

·       Average engagement is 0.3% higher than Nike (Figure 25) 

·       Image produced the best engagement for Adidas; this is likely due to the content and not the content type.  

Followers  

·       Follower growth rate is negative for Adidas (-0.085%) (Figure 33) 

·       Adidas experienced a mass drop in follower count in April 2021. (Figure 33) 

Mentions  

·       @Mylo_unleather mention of a sustainable fashion brand in collaboration with     Adidas. 

·       @Beyonce – One of the most significant fashion/beauty icons with over 177m followers brings publicity to the post and increases engagement. 

 

Competitive Analysis

• See Appendix 7 for SWOT Comparison Analysis on Nike and Adidas.

• See Appendix 8 for 5W'S & H

• See Appendix 9 for Positioning Matrix.

• See Appendix 10 for SWOT Analysis on Nike and Adidas's Digital Presences.

Overall 

The increase of 7.3% of internet users since January 2020 (Kemp 2020) tells us that social media is starting to take over traditional media (Coulter et al, 2012). If Nike takes full advantage of this by posting every day or at least three times a week, engagement rates should increase significantly. Therefore, increased engagement can help Nike predict trends and earn more about their customers' wants.