Social media monitoring project for NIKEiD

I organized all the information I collected into a report, at Google Document. Please say details and leave feedbacks.

Personally I love this brand, and I do believe it can be improved.

Energizing and embracing the customers - how NIKEiD can enhance its groundswell

In the past two weeks, I monitored more detailed messages about NIKEiD's groundswell and did some deeper analysis. Here are some new findings:

1 Different tones are used between Twitter and Facebook

• Even for the same topics, LeBron X iD being launched and “pick your kicks”, it appears different tones on Facebook and Twitter.
• Twitter's tone: talking to a friend, interpersonal, casual and more willing to get feedback. 
• Facebook' tone: cool, short and unwilling to continue talking

2 The most common messages are least effective

• NIKEiD, delivering too many messages about new products result in turning NIKEiD’s groundswell another medium of advertising or another product catalog. However, talking more about the design and styles and highlighting customers’ achievement and contribution are what groundswell should do. 
• In addition, besides the topics around products, messages related to fashion, health and lifestyle should also be involved in order to show the spirit of NIKEiD and make communication more emotional and interpersonal.

3 No feedback on Facebook and limited feedback on Twitter

• No feedback on Facebook even for the hottest discussion
• No feedback to either positive or negative comments
• Great feedback on some tweets about customers' design
• Limited feedback on Twitter

4 Failed to create buzz & poor engagement

On November 12, NIKEiD Facebook met 2 million likes, and only an activity message posted. There is no more words to express thanks, no supporting messages to celebrate on other platforms, and no marketing strategies, like deals or coupons, to energizing sales. Nothing has been done with this event to create buzz. As a customer, I disappointed.

5 Reduce cooperation with social media
Last week, NIKEiD delate the social media update part on its official website.

After Monitoring NIKEiD's groundswell, I would like to make the following recommendations:

• Goals:

Ø  Use groundswell to raise interpersonal conversation in order to better understand customer needs

Ø  Create buzz to increase social mention, attentions and unique visitors to benefit marketing

Ø  Increase effectiveness of groundswell in marketing and branding and take advantages of unique features of social media instead of turning them into product catalog

Ø  Energizing customers and make them the power and resources to produce more sales as well as improvement to the products and the brand

• Recommendations:

1. Give more feedback showing you are listening: The groundswell should always be there when customers are talking. It may be impossible to response all the comments, but it is needed to show you are listening even by participate in the discussion. For example, for the hot discussion of navy or orange (Picture 11-1), there is no need to respond all the comments, but it would be helpful posting “Kobe prefers navy according to our interview” or concluding “Orange wins!” In addition, customers’ design and opinion should be high valued, which means it’s important to give feedback to customers’ design and the positive and negative comments about the products and brands. If you don’t give feedback to the negative comments (Picture 11-2), this customer may spread the words and the negative sentiment.
2. Speak social media language showing you are a friend rather than you are a brand: The tone needs to be changes, especially on Facebook. Posting messages in a talking tone will lead to more positive sentiment and make customers more willing to talk. On the other hand, talking like a brand may turn the words into advertising. Speaking your customer’s language will make you closer to your customers, or you will lose your customers.
3. Release multiple messages and enhance richness attracting more talking: The topics of groundswell should concentrate more on designing of customers and discussion of features rather than products. Groundswell is not a place to do advertising or release new product catalog, which repeats the messages from other media. So NIKEiD needs to focus on the topics which other media are not able to talk about and the messages of your customers which you cannot know from other places. Also, more topics about fashion, health and lifestyle should be involved. Now the marketing is about branding and communicating instead of only products and sales.In addition, NIKEiD should use more videos and even a little more words in groundswell instead of only pictures, since the pictures have been proved not that effective. Videos are more effective and easier to attract customers attention. Besides, the pictures should contain more content instead of only showing the products.
4. Focus on what your customers care: NIKEiD has paid enough attention to the products, while that’s not what customers want. Groundswell helps you understand the needs of your customers, and should be used to embracing these needs. From the monitoring, it’s obvious that NIKEiD’s customers care about new fashions, their own and others’ designs as well as the discussion about styles. As a result, NIKEiD should highlight these things and show full attention and respects to its customers.
5. Create buzz for energizing your customers: It’s important to create buzz in groundswell to raise more attention and discussion. Every special event can be a buzz, like the 2 million likes millstone (Picture 12), then the buzz will turn to more unique visitors and more sales. Much more efforts should be made to energizing the customers, especially when they are young and energetic. If your customers are ready to be energized with high passion and loyalty, there is no reason to keep the groundswell quiet.
6. Create NIKEiD style and NIKEiD groundswell: NIKEiD need its own style in page layout, color and especially social media marketing strategies. NIKEiD has its own target audience and mission, so this uniqueness required independent social media marketing strategies. In addition, for NIKEiD, groundswell should be stressed because it’s the best way to energizing people to design and participate instead of only purchasing.
7. Embracing the groundswell and turning the number of the audience into improvement of your brand: Now NIKEiD has 2 million people who like its Facebook, more that one hundred thousand people who follow its Twitter, and numerous visitors on other social media platform. The groundswell definitely needs stronger strategies to play to its strengths to make more contribution to NIKEiD and its products. Social media can be used as a platform where customers can improve the brand, so just do it.