Nike’s Web Communication Plan Completed

The aim of this page is to analyze is to analyze Nike’s web communication plan, which has been deeply developed as it has created accounts on the most remarkable social network currently below and it has a big online through them.

There are currently lots of companies that offer equipment for sports. If we begin to think about firms that offer this kind of products Nike will come to our mind for sure. It is hard to find someone who has not heard about this company as it promotes its products  in a very effective way using different tools in such an innovate style that they get public attention easily. There are many things that can be said about Nike, but broadly defined; it is the world’s leading supplier of sport shoes and a major manufacturer of this sort of equipment, with more than 44.000 employed people worldwide. It is clear that such an extensive company needs a marketing strategy. Nike knows it and Nike has it.

Regarding Nike’s promotion in Internet, there are evident examples that show it has a strong presence in the web. We will focus on some of the networks tools the company uses to achieve its privilege first position as the sales leader in the market.

Brand

To start with, Nike is well known for being a company that invests heavily in advertisements and brand promotion. It has a logo which is quite distinctive and a slogan “Just Do It” that are instantly associated to the company.  In Nike’s campaigns, through Internet as well through other media, sometimes is not even mentioned the company’s name, only using the logo or the slogan. This is the result of previous advertising campaigns which had a considerable success and led the customers to associate them with the company.  Starting from these favorable advantages, the company has developed different ways of promoting through social networks:

Nike has achieved a significant progress promoting its products through these social networks:

Firstly, it has several twitter accounts in order to pay special attention to each of the products and to create a major demand of them. Since Twitter took off in 2008, many experts have claimed its helpfulness concerning the world business. Twitter is one clear example of the company’s strategy in the web. Twitter is the perfect tool for communication with customers as they can receive instant updates about the company’s latest news. Add to this is the fact that this social network has become increasingly popular among the public lately, which gives to its users the advantage of sending (shorts, o more than 140 characters) messages that will be seen by everyone easily.

Through Twitter the company advertises the products massively to the public, provides information of the company and builds relationships with customers. It is a perfect tool to grow in popularity. Some Twitter accounts like@Nikedigitaljobs are dedicated entirely to recruitment of staff, while others focus more on Nike in each sport.

Nike takes advantage of hiring a number of famous professionals that have a Twitter account too, and they use it as another way of gaining considerable attention from the public. The famous athletes posts pictures of themselves with Nike’s products and with it they build a competitive marketing strategy. Some of the famous professionals used in Nike’s campaigns include stars such as Lebron James, Tiger Woods or Ronaldinho. This visual tactic has proved successful as it attracts customers attention in the simplest and easiest possible way. This tactic associates their wide range of products with high quality which eventually has enabled the company to raise its pricing.

The fact that this marketing strategy have always succeeded in promoting their products by means of associating relevant personalities to their goods has made Nike to continue this path to sell them, and so far this strategy has built Nike corporation brand the leader of the market.

Another valuable accessory for Nike’s strategy is  Facebook. This worldwide known network, which is used by the seventh of the global population, started working in 2004 as a hobby for some university students and it ended up as a necessary tool for marketing in business. In this way, the website is used to target certain audiences of the market and for the promotion and marketing of all kinds of products and services.

This is why Nike has an account on Facebook in which keeps on inspiring people, many athletes as its spokesperson also appear on their Facebook page, and are always a reminder of this call for action. Perhaps this social network is more market-oriented than Twitter, which is mainly to build relationship with customers. Facebook provides more information about the products and about the company itself too as it has created a profile in order to bring its business to view.

WEB PAGE

Another crucial advertising tool is Nike’s official web page. The company has several web pages in order to provide information and enable customers to buy online more easily. You can also find different videos promoting the products, Nike use them as a way of associating personal satisfaction with them. So, it creates an image of competition and achievement of doing your best. In the webpage we easily find a menu with different sections and subsections giving more specific information about the products.

The webpage also offer to the customers different ways to communicate with the company (via e-mail or telephone) and the option of checking the order status (where is the product or date of arrival). This time we find again different subsection for every sport (football, skate…)

Customers can register in the page and become a ‘Nike member’ and get perks; like free shipping and free returns that only members enjoy. There is also the choice of searching stores near you simply with the postal code. Another value added are gift cards only available on the web page in order to apply discounts when buying online.

YOUTUBE

Nike takes advantage of YouTube to strengthen its strategy tool. It has proven to be a highly effective business tool because it adds credibility and authenticity. Furthermore, through the time YouTube has continued to be the most important video promotion and publicity tool for companies of all types. So far the internet’s biggest and most admired online video store, YouTube is offering incredible opportunities for businesses to show off skills, share information, advertise products and connect with customers.

In this platform Nike has created its own channel as an innovate intermediate to keep in contact with customers easily, besides in this way it offers special attention to each product and also focuses on special targets in the market. There are special channels for some sports such as football, basketball or golf and also channels for women, or training in general.

Nike’s videos often show sports professionals succeeding using its products. The company makes videos with a strong emotional impact, so its main purpose is to associate certain feelings to its products in a way that always ends up increasing sales. Motivation and personal success are some of the feelings that these videos reflects, thus managing to influence and encourage customers to buy its products. In this sense, Youtube tool has proven to be essential for the company.

These videos are very important promotional campaigns as they show again famous sportsman/woman practicing exercise and achieving success, and at the same time linking this success with the effectiveness of these products. Apparently, the company often makes this kind of campaigns to keep the promotion of the company permanent on the public. Besides, Nike takes advantage of special events in order to reinforce its advertising strategy making even more emotional clips, as for example the campaign for the or the Olympic Games in 2012.

Another example of this could be the videos that the company did to stand up for the value of Spanish athletes when some famous figures of our country were accused of doping.

 

Nike also uses Flickr, an image and video hosting webpage that has become recently popular as it offers the option of sharing personal photographs. The company uses this website as another way of showing its products via Internet, as the website allows its users to download the photographs and also exchange opinions about them. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/nike/clusters/]

Great importance is given to the company’s account on Linkedin. This platform is aimed to professionals. Nike uses it in a way of attracting potential workers. In this account, we can find people that are already working for the company. The different jobs at Nike are also fully explained and the most important thing is the comments that people post in the network about the company itself. This is an invaluable source of interaction for the company.

Nike presents its work as an opportunity to develop as a person in the job, to be challenged and to work with the best talents, and in this way the company looks for the best and the most committed people to work for them. The difference with other network tools the company uses is that with Linkedin Nike focuses on workers leaving other tools to potential clients and public in general.

BLOG

We cannot forget another precious tool to promote Nike’s products and the company itself in general, their Blog.  It has a well-disposed layout with several sections:

1. Home: there we find the articles posted about products and sports events
2. Advertise: the company looks for   beneficial relationships with advertising partners in relevant niches
3. Contact: the steps to contact with them
4. Ads: a video store starring successful sportsman/women
5. Drop dates: here we find release dates for the latest products

We can stress out some details that the blog emphasizes concretely, it is focus on giving information rather than in other anything else and promoting the company in general. Post are written regularly by Lucas Leftfoot and are targeted to public in general as it is not specifically oriented to potential customers (you cannot buy through the blog).

The posts usually give interesting information (although they can be a bit long if you are not a sports enthusiast) of the products and sports events and they upload photos and videos to entertain the public and use famous figures again. Using blog to promote the latest products have proved to be one of the best ways of advertising, as it keeps the public informed whether they are potential customers or not. The blog is synchronized with @nikeblog, which tweets every article posted in the blog.

Part of the success of Nike’s promoting strategy is because the company has defined itself as company which provides inspiration to everyone interested in sports. Being one of the most social brands in the world, it has given a special importance to social strategy through Internet, which clearly has achieved a great success and that has led to its extension globally.

Furthermore, this strategy has followed simple steps in order to attract the audience attention proving that its business is not boring (using different social tools originally), generating a word of mouth system, communicating with its clients easily, providing customer service and support or keeping an eye on customers opinions. These could be some of the reasons that have contributed and led Nike to lead the market leader ahead of other companies.

Currently the mass media has an incredible influence on society, but with the time communication tools will end up focusing mainly on the Internet. That’s why Nike in the later years has emphasized on the priority of digital marketing, and overall, incoming its communication, online communication. So, we can conclude that Nike has a big presence on the web which has been a determining factor in its success.

References:

• Sarag Hopkins Nike’s Marketing Strategy (2011) Retrieved from http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Nike-s-marketing-strategy/1456078
• Lalit Bhambwani (2005) Advertising Strategy of Nike. Retrieved from http://es.scribd.com/doc/77555533/Advertising-Strategy-of-Nike
• Lilly Glos (2012) Nike vs Adidas : who has the best social networks strategy ?. Retrieved from http://newmarketingexperience.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/nike-vs-adidas-who-has-best-social.html
• Stefano Hatfield (2003) What makes Nike’s advertising tick. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003/jun/17/marketingandpr.advertising
• (2012) How Nike has changed it Marketing Strategy. Retrieved from  http://www.fluffylinks.com/nike-digital-marketing
• Ali Qayyum (2012) 9 Killer Tips To Use YouTube For Business. Retrieved from http://smashinghub.com/youtube-for-business.htm
• Adam Vicenzini (2012) Cool Campaigns: Nike’s #KobeSystem Campaign ‘Attacks’ YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.commscorner.com/2012/01/cool-campaigns-nikes-kobesystem.html#.UPHX_m-cMy5

 

Nike Web Communication Plan Introduction

It is the world’s leading supplier of sport shoes and a major manufacturer of this sort of equipment, with more than 44.000 employed people worldwide. It is clear that such an extensive company needs a marketing strategy. Nike knows it and Nike has it,

Nike is well known for being a company that invests heavily in advertisements and brand promotion. It has a logo which is quite distinctive and a slogan “Just Do It” that are instantly associated to the company.  Starting from these favorable advantages, the company has developed different ways of promoting its products through Internet, which has built Nike corporation brand the leader of the market.

The company uses many popular social networks in order to marker its products easily. Nike has achieved a significant progress promoting its products in this way. Firstly, it has several twitter accounts  in order to pay special attention to each of the products and to create a major demand of them.

Nike has also a Facebook account in which keeps on inspiring people, many athletes as its spokesperson also appear on their Facebook page, and are always a reminder of this call for action. Perhaps this social network is more market-oriented than Twitter, which is mainly to build relationship with customers. Facebook provides more information about the products and about the company itself too.

Another crucial advertising tool is Nike’s web page. The company has several web pages in order to provide information and enable customers to buy online more easily. You can also find different videos promoting the products, Nike use them as a way of associating personal satisfaction with them. So, it creates an image of competition and achievement of doing your best.

Its presence online has been increasing with the time as a result of the importance nowadays of Internet. I will explain Nike’s marketing plan  in more detail  soon.

Shop strategy

Considering the difficult situation we are living today, we all must take care of our business as much as possible, and also remain aware and alert of the latest advances in marketing strategies in order to get the maximum benefit from our businesses. That requires some expert readings to have a proper view and design a shop strategy. This comes up as a result of the importance and impact of internet in our lives, not only for entertainment, but also for work issues. Internet is a very valuable work tool, and it is really important to take advantage of it for our business.

After reading some interesting articles such as  How use Internet for Businesses or The Impact of Internet to gather information, I realized that social networking can be translated into benefits for you and your business. I have a bar called Puzzle’s, and bearing in mind the huge number of people that use Internet as a search tool for either information or shopping,  we have decided to use this platform in order to advertise  our bar, but specially to attract a new younger customer profile.  My staff and I have designed a shop strategy to carry out this idea; we have mainly focused on social networks, which have an enormous influence in the public thanks to the continuous info updated and communication.

Puzzles is an enjoyable place to stay in for everyone whether it is with your family or friends. Besides it has undergone recently a series of redesigns that have given it a new air and we expect to attract more customers.

To achieve our goal, we have decided to use Twitter, Facebook and a Blog to advertise and promote Puzzles. The advantage of these social networking is that you build a personal branding to identify yourself easily that will influence your business positively (if you do it correctly).  We will build a digital identity too as well an online reputation that we will have to take care.

 We have decided to use Twitter as a tool for promoting our bar, with it we have an instant communication and access to everything being said. It allows you to send information to an entire customer community. Besides Twitter has become increasingly popular among young people. For these reasons we have created and account to upload photos of our tapas and special offers every day, we will have a weekly draw for a special breakfast on Mondays too. In our tweets we will also put links to our Blog to provide more information about Puzzles. It is near Deusto University, so we think that the draws and tapas promotions through Twitter will be a good idea because many students leave their homes without breakfast. Our followers will have to tweet us during the week and on Fridays the draw will be done in order to let our customers know in advance who have won it and in this way he or she will begin the week happily. Through this social network we will also get in touch with other business too, thus, we will keep abreast of other shops strategies.

Facebook is commonly used in advertising too and it is another way of expanding our reach. We will follow the same scheme on Facebook uploading photos, but this time, we will collect bookings from customers. With the recent redesigns, we now have a bigger terrace where customers can have meals in a pleasant environment during the day, but as an innovation for young people the terrace will also be available at nights to celebrate parties. Facebook will be the way of keeping up to date about the “Happy Hour” which will always vary the timetable depending on a voting that will decide which drunks will have a discount and when  (with a maximum of three days).

Having a Blog is an excellent way to show expertise and build credibility. So we have recently created a Blog too as a way of sharing all the news of the Bar with our followers. There you will find the menu of the day and the information of what we call “Magic Saturdays” which had been already working for a while, but we have now added some surprises. There will be music bands, monologues and expositions to make Saturday the most enjoyable day at Puzzles. All this information will be regularly updated .Our Blog will have a special space for all the comments of our customers to let us know their opinion about our products, meals and events. In this way, we will improve with their comments. The Blog will be crucial in order to build our personal brand.

We have created a personal branding through these social networks, starting from the fact that our logo is a puzzle with lots of colors; we will try to follow that image and have customized our social accounts so that our customers associate certain elements with our business. Furthermore, our logo topography will also be used in our menus, and the photos of the bar are the background images of our Facebook account and our Blog.

This shop strategy is the result of an exhaustive reading about how to use social networks in business and the study of strategies of other shops. Some readings like Social networking to win by Sirena Bergman or How to grow your business by Brad Smith are useful to avoid time and money wasted and getting the most of our online efforts. Our next step will be creating a web page that will replace the Blog which is temporary until we investigate more about it. We expect this strategy to work.

Internet is the fastest growing present phenomenon and it is constantly changing, so it is difficult to keep aware always, but we have to do an effort and make it part of our businesses because it can offer may advantages. Social media is about sharing content and building relationships, so using networks will allow us to increase our public, as well as at the same time focus on a specific target. Besides, it is free of charge, so the promotion of you products will be easier, this tool as you can see can actually offer us many advantages that we have to explore and choose the way of using them.

References:

Sirena Bergman (2012) How to use social media to win new business . Retriebed from http://www.guardian.co.uk/small-business-network/2012/oct/22/roundup-live-chat-social-media-for-business

 Brad Smith (2012)  The 3 Worst Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business (And What You Should Do Instead). Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/793301/3-worst-ways-use-social-media-grow-your-business-and-what-you-should-do-instead

(2012) How do your business use the Internet. Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/793301/3-worst-ways-use-social-media-grow-your-business-and-what-you-should-do-instead

Elisabeth (2012) Great Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business, Retrieved from http://assistsocialmedia.com/use-social-media-to-grow-your-business/

Blog´s Code of conduct

I have recently read some interesting articles Call for a Blogger’s Code of Conduct, Draft Blogger’s Code of Conduct,and  Code of Conduct: Lessons Learned So Far by Tim O´Reilly bout some codes of conduct, that bloggers (like me, a total beginner in this) should have. This topic has raised some controversy, so there is a strong feeling on this subject.

When creating our blog, we have to take into consideration that other readers are going to write comments about your post and they are going to strike up between them to exchange information and thoughts.

This, surely, will cause in certain cases some inappropriate comments that we, bloggers, must not tolerate. There are many examples of dialogues which do not follow some basic rules of public expressions, and in order to maintain our blogs (and all) with certain kind of quality, here are some advices to help bloggers:

Unfortunately, there is no way of avoiding arguments, but we can do is let the reader know in advance what level of discourse is expected. They will also have to pay attention to the quality of the speech (use of local expressions sparingly, no more caps than necessary…).

All the comments do not need to be signed with a real name (it can be an alias), but when people write anonymous comments, they tend to say things that they would never if they were identified, so requiring a valid e-mail address is an advisable security measure.

We must bear in mind that we should not comment anything that we would not say in person; Internet usually encourages people to be more daring because they are in front of a screen, and it is easier to end the arguments with disrespectful words. Other kinds of comments which violates the privacy of other, or is racist, homophobic, sexist etc, should be immediately deleted. However, there is also a responsibility on the other side of bloggers not to eliminate dialogues only because they express opinions the poster does not agree with. Remember that you control the forum and you must act as a suitable model.

In my opinion this is the right way to build a constructive forum in which everybody is allowed to express their opinions in a freeway and it is also a perfect tool to learn from one to another free of charge.

These are the references I used to find out a little more about the subject:

• O´Reilly, T. (2007). Code of Conduct: Lessons Learned So Far. Retrieved from http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/04/code-of-conduct-lessons-learne.html
• O´Reilly, T. (2007). Draft Blogger’s Code of Conduct. Retrieved from http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/04/draft-bloggers-code-of-conduct.html
• O´Reilly, T. (2007). Call for a Blogger’s Code of Conduct. Retrieved from http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/03/call-for-a-bloggers-code-of-co.html

The Complete Guide for Twitter

Hi, we are working with Twitter in class, so here you have a useful web  page to learn how to use it. Enjoy it!

Twitter Guide

My university

 

A beautiful day in Bilbao.

Incredible

Here we have the world’s 10 biggest animals of all time

 

 

Heart of Darkness

There is the pdf of Heart of Darkness, the book we read in multiculturalism

 

Heart of Darkness

 

 

Inserting pictures

trying new posts

Work class activity