Week 2 Part B - Business Research
Nike
Nike is an athletic brand that sells footwear, equipment, apparel and accessories globally.
On their website, the social media they are visibly using are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube. These links can be found at the bottom right section of the page and will take you straight to their page on each platform. Nike does not post daily, however their content does a great job of speaking for itself and has a lot of engagement. The last time they posted was on August 31st on Instagram. Their last tweet was August 31st. Their last Facebook post was August 31st as well as on Youtube. I believe that Nike does a good job of keeping consistency. Although they post every few weeks, they make sure to have the same content released on the same day on all social media platforms.Their Twitter has over 8.2 million followers. Their Facebook has 34.4 million followers. Their Instagram has 121 million followers and their Youtube has 1.52 million followers. Since Nike has been around forever, they do a good job of making their business personal. On all platforms they take the time to engage with some, but not all customers.
Lululemon Athletica
Lululemon Athletica is an international company that sells quality activewear and apparel here in the United States, as well as abroad.
Lululemon Athletica is using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Youtube. The links for their social media platforms can be found at the bottom right page of their website.
Their Facebook currently has 2.1 million followers and their last post was September 7th. There Instagram currently has 3.3 million followers and their last post was also on September 7th.. Their Pinterest currently has 2 million followers and their blog style posts seem to bring in customers. Their Youtube currently has 229,000 followers and their last post was 3 weeks ago. Since it is an athletic brand, there are short workouts they post in their gear every few weeks, Their Twitter currently has 1 million followers and their last tweet was on September 6th. Their Facebook and Instagram seem to have the most recurring posts followed by Twitter. While Youtube seems to be biweekly with inspiration and fitness tips from different trainers. After looking through their content, Lululemon Athletica does a phenomenal job of responding to customer needs as well as thanking their praises.
Adidas
Adidas is an international apparel and athletic line that also features footwear. Their stores can be found across the globe or be purchased at the click of a finger.
Upon looking at Adidas website, I was unable to locate their social media platforms. After researching on Google I found that they had an Instagram with 25 million followers, a Twitter with 3.8 million followers and a Youtube with 894k followers. I was very surprised to see that they did not have their links up. I figured that would be something that's standard but they were not too hard to find. September 5th was the last time they posted on Instagram.September 7th was the last time they posted on Twitter and three weeks ago was the last time they posted on Youtube. Twitter seems to have more frequent posts, followed by Instagram. To my surprise, Adidas doesn’t really engage or respond to people like most other athletic brands.
Reebok
Reebok is a large international brand originally based in the United Kingdom. They are known for their athletic wear, as well as their footwear.
On their website, there are no hyperlinks to their social media platforms so I had to make sure I looked for myself. Reebok currently has 2.1 million followers on Instagram and last posted on August 31st. Reebok last tweeted on the 4th of September and has 714k followers. Their Youtube channel has 159k followers and they have not posted in over 6 months. For this I was actually surprised. I assumed that Reebok would be more popular but maybe it is their lack of content and engagement that keeps their number of followers lower than all other active brands that I researched. I would have to say that they use Twitter the most. While their Youtube page could use more recent content.
Champion
Champion is an international company and clothing line featuring athletic apparel. They also have accessories and gear for men and women of all ages, including footwear.
After looking over Champion’s website I found three of their social media platforms. First is their Instagram that holds over 5.8 million followers. This page was last posted on September 8th and has a lot of content and engagement between customer and the brand. Second, is their Facebook, that also posted on September 8th. With over 1.8million followers this Facebook page also serves as a line to address all customer service needs. Then finally their Youtube page holds 2.94k followers and last uploaded 9 months ago. I think this lack of content shows in the amount of subscribers they have on Youtube. In order to build their following they must produce content and that just isn’t the case for them at the moment. They also do not talk to people as much as other bigger brands.
Activewear is a very lucrative business. This includes and is not limited to footwear and accessories. For this assignment I decided to research the same kind of businesses in order to see if they used the same methodology for social media and content. The five brands I chose to analyze were Nike, Lululemon Athletica, Adidas, Reebok and Champion. All of these activewear companies are well known worldwide and are advocates of fitness.
As I began to research, I found that the companies with less followers tend to have less engagement with customers. Companies like Champion and Reebok did not have many Youtube subscribers and that may be linked to the lack of content on their streams. Both platforms did not post on their Youtube channels in over 6 months. While their other social media handles had more content. I noticed, compared to other companies, they do not have as many interactions with users.
However, when looking at more popular activewear brands like Nike, Adidas and even Lululemon Athletica, they all seem to have one thing in common-- engagement. When I was looking through all of their social media platforms, these sites took the time to make one on one personal connections with users that engaged in their posts. Not only did they have consistency and the same content on most of their sites, they also were consistent with the amount of time they post in. Each post had a story or deeper meaning and were never about the products, but rather the people they represent.
In conclusion, my biggest takeaway from this assignment is the consumers. It is crucial for every business to make sure the people they are marketing to feel as if they care. Talking with customers about concerns and needs is one way to keep them engaged. It shows users that there is more to the business than just a brand. Making deeper connections create long lasting customer satisfaction.
Great information Brittany, while I did my research I also noticed how drastically the followers count changed from other platforms versus Instagram.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you said " It shows users that there is more to the business than just a brand. " That means so much, it is very important to build relationships with your clients to build a permanent clientele.
I also came to a very similar conclusion with the customers. I think the more the brand listens to their customers and made calculated responses, the more engagement and more excitement around their brand they received. The businesses I studied were a lot smaller in comparison to yours, so the engagement effect, based on numbers didn't always make sense. One brand with almost 100k followers on their IG didn't receive as many comments as a smaller brand with only 10k customers. It was kind of strange, but then I looked into how the smaller business was actively engaging their customers.
ReplyDelete