Air Jordan is an American brand of basketball shoes and other clothing produced by Nike.
Air Jordan was first introduced to the world in 1984 when Michael Jordan wore his first signature shoe. Since then, Nike and Michael Jordan have turned Air Jordan into a 10 billion dollar brand estimated by Forbes. Air Jordans mission statement is,
“Our vision is a world where people enjoys the quality and durability of Air Jordan Shoes, not just to collect them but also wear them to become part of ones life.” Mission: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete.”
In the following pages I will discuss Air Jordans social media strategies and see just how effective Air Jordans social media strategy is.
In total, five different social media networks will be analyzed by using Spredfast's "Core 4:"
- Brand Awareness
- Driving Engagement + Participation
- Generating Social Conversions + Sales Leads
- Delivering Superior Customer Service
Brand Awareness
Air Jordan does a great job at promoting its brand across all of their social media platforms. Rather than creating Brand Awareness by displaying humor like some social marketing teams, Air Jordan keeps it simple with a heart full of passion. Just about all of Air Jordans posts are narrative related, meaning they love displaying their athletes and fans best stories. These stories range from how everyone first got their favorite pair of Air Jordans, how they designed their shoe, or even their come up story. These narrative based posts gives a nostalgic feel to the user who comes across their social media pages, which is great because it connects to the consumers on an emotional level. Air Jordan also loves to share their charitable work and where they stand on social issues. A lot of their charitable work is not boasted on social media due to Jordans humbleness, although just enough is shown to show that they more than care about social injustices.
Driving Engagement and Participation
Much like Michael Jordans unwillingness to keep up with every single social trend, Air Jordan does not really follow social media trends. Although this may sound counterintuitive, I think it is actually fitting with their brand. Air Jordans posts are all very consistent and within character. Rather then selling out and posting every viral meme just to drive engagement, Air Jordan creates a sense of fan loyalty. Air Jordan also loves to have contests where they pick fans or small creators with the best video stories to be able to design a pair of sneakers, often selling these sneakers for general release to the public.
Generating Social Conversations + Sales Leads
Air Jordan is very unique in that they do not need to promote sales as much as other products. This is because Air Jordan customers are extremely loyal and more than likely already have another pair of Jordans when buying new ones. Air Jordan also does a great job at letting other blogs and social media sites do the promoting for them. So other than an occasional post of a new release of a shoe or a link to the new seasons clothing collection, Air Jordan really does not clutter the users screens with sales and deals all that much. This is also within Air Jordans character as they rarely sell out for the customer, because there is trust between the two. Rather Air Jordan likes posting when one of their brand endorsers reaches a new accolade, needs votes for the all-star game, or has something new to share. Air Jordan loves to back their endorsers up because they know they are hot topics.
Delivering Superior Customer Service
Air Jordan does a great job with customer service by having links on every social media page to help with customer service. Air Jordan is very understanding in their customer service department as they have been doing this for a while now and know what to expect.
Now, we will take a look at each individual platform for further analysis.
Air Jordan does a pretty good job in the twitter atmosphere abiding a few exceptions. Their best quality is their ability to provide value. Rather than posting every minute of the day, Air Jordan posts about twice a day, mainly relating to one of their endorsers accolades or shining a spotlight on one of their creators.
One weakness in Air Jordan's Twitter marketing strategy is the page rarely shows personality and rarely posts memes. Although no memes, I think their rather chill personality is very consistent for their rather cool social media presence. The last area Jordan needs to improve on in their twitter marketing strategy is being able to conduct engaging polls. The poll below is rather bland and does not really call for action or really have a purpose, thus the low engagement.
One of the best ways Air Jordan uses their Instagram is by celebrating big moments. In fact their most liked picture within the last year was this post of vintage Michael Jordan on his birthday, where they announced they will be releasing a shoe the public has not seen since 1990.
Another way Air Jordan is having success on Instagram is by using timely events to share images. Here is a picture of a post of all Jordan athletes for this year's all-star game.
Another great way Air Jordan uses Instagram effectively is by showing fan love. They frequently post their fans sporting the best Air Jordan looks.
Something Air Jordan could work on in order to improve their Instagram experience is by posting in relation to other trending hashtags on Instagram. I have seen no #TBT's, or anything other high exposing hashtags.
Something Air Jordan does nice on their Facebook page is they always post clean sleek photos or videos, except for when they release big socially powered statements. Other than that they could definitely use some work on their Facebook Page, considering their last post was a year ago.
Something I would recommend to Air Jordan when it comes to Facebook is to have a lot more exclusive content and to post more. I would also recommend differing the posts from Instagram and Twitter.
Youtube
Air Jordan does a great job keeping up with their youtube account. Although they only have 389K subscribers, they do a great job of having all their video content throughout social media in one spot. Not only that but they have exclusive videos on youtube like podcasts, interviews, and short clips. They have only been posting for about a year so hopefully they can continue to gain subscribers. The only element I would say they are missing from their youtube page are long form videos. I am sure there are fans out there who would love to sit down and listen to longer interviews, podcasts, and even uncut commercials. Youtube is also built for long form videos.
Summary
Helping Consumers Along the Way:
Air Jordan knows their customers are very loyal and are pretty unwilling to switch brands, and they have a large share of the shoe market. Knowing this, Jordan keeps a rather cool social media persona by not throwing everything in your face at once to buy. Because of this, Jordan comes off as an exclusive brand, not one that is desperate for your money. But they subliminally keep the consumers on the hook by hyping up new releases, using cool narratives, doing charity work, and keeping a cool demeanor. All Jordan needs to do is make sure you know when the new collection is dropping, and their work is pretty much done.
Based on my findings...
It seems, Air Jordan is in the fifth stage of the social business strategy because all of their social media presence is aligned with their business goals. Air Jordan also understands the importance of having executives in the social media department, as they were born from Nike. I would have given them the sixth stage, but a couple of their social media pages could use some work, mainly their Facebook page.