Existing strategy
Nike promotes a large variety of women’s running shoes both in its website and in other social media sites. Some of the social sites Nike uses to promote women’s running shoes include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. The company incorporates a number of attractive products in its social media marketing sites when promoting women’s running shoes (Daniasa, Tomita, Stuparu & Stanciu, 2010).
Criticism of existing strategy
The strategy reaches a large audience since ocial media is widely used across the globe (Castronovo & Huang, 2012; Dumovic & Knowles, 2008). Social media sites provide a cost effective platform for marketing and promoting goods and services. The sites act as online stores (Deshpandé, Grinstein & Ofek, 2012; Lee, 2013).
However, adequate time and effort are required to update social media accounts. Moreover, information posted on social media sites cannot be viewed for a long time because they are replaced by new ones. It is also easy to lose followers if posts are not presented in an interactive manner.
Puma (an immediate competitor to Nike) uses Instagram as an additional social media site. Adidas’ social media promotion for women’s running shoes is not elaborate. All the women’s products are promoted as a unit (Tian & Borges, 2012; White, 2010).
Recommendations
Nike can use develop a mobile application of convenient size which can be easily downloaded and installed in WAP-enabled phones. The app should be easy to use with login details of the user for security purposes (Ang, 2011; Larson, 2011).
Once the targeted audiences have installed the app, they will never miss any future promotions of the product even if they do not access social media sites (Chu & Chiu, 2013). Moreover, a mobile app will differentiate the product offerings and marketability of Nike’s products. Users should also be able to customize the app in terms of theme color, orientation, fonts and other effects.
References
Ang, L. (2011). Is SCRM really a good social media strategy? Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 18(3), 149-153.
Castronovo, C., & Huang, L. (2012). Social media in an alternative marketing communication model. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 6(1), 117-134.
Chu, M., & Chiu, S. (2013). Effective marketing strategies to attract business visitors at trade shows. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(24), 64-72.
Daniasa, C. I., Tomita, V., Stuparu, D., & Stanciu, M. (2010). The Mechanisms of The Influence of Viral Marketing In Social Media. Economics, Management and Financial Markets, 5(3), 278-282.
Deshpandé, R., Grinstein, A., & Ofek, E. (2012). Strategic orientations in a competitive context: The role of strategic orientation differentiation. Marketing Letters, 23(3), 629-643.
Dumovic, P., & Knowles, D. T. (2008). Marketing masterclass; product differentiation for competitive advantage. Journal of Medical Marketing, 8(1), 5-8.
Larson, D. (2011). Global brand management – nike’s global brand. The ISM Journal of International Business, 1(3), 14.
Lee, H. S. (2013). Social media and youtube as an attractive marketing tool. Journal of American Business Review, Cambridge., 1(2), 249-255.
Tian, G., & Borges, L. (2012). The effectiveness of social marketing mix strategy: Towards an anthropological approach. International Journal of Business Anthropology, 3(1), 102-113.
White, D. W. (2010). The impact of marketing strategy creation style on the formation of a climate of trust in a retail franchise setting. European Journal of Marketing, 44(1), 162-179.