So, if you recall from my last post talking about the ongoing saga between athletic gear behemoth Nike versus the new trend in women’s athletic footwear, toning, Nike is doing themselves a clear disservice in their decision to ‘take a stand’ against the growing popularity of these Reebok “Easy Tone” sneakers (as well as Sketcher’s version) and not jump in to an ever growing niche in women’s athletic footwear. And in my opinion, its a clear example of when a company (possibly justifiably) sees risk in a particular movement, refuses to take action with their competition embraces innovation (at least so far) and is failing to tap into a niche with which a very lucrative section of their target demographic is already diving into. Take it one step further, it could be argued that Nike is in fact insulting this very same demographic by stating that consumers who buy toning footwear are “compromising” on certain elements Nike has decided are crucial to the integrity of women’s athletic footwear. And as I concluded in my last post, I cannot help but see parallels to this story in how some companies and businesses still fail to embrace social media as part of their marketing and community engagement strategy.
I take it something like this. I can understand how C-levels or business owners see the risk in engaging in social networks as part of an overall engagement or growth strategy. Heck, the same goes for bloggers who choose to focus their energies only in their blog, and not foster awareness or growth through other social online spaces. There is more often than not always going to be risk in trying exercises that are new, arguably unproven, and resource-exhaustive. But the folly is in the stall tactics or downright refusal to try. I hear so often the story of having to prove the value of integrating social media into a marketing mix, but in my opinion, there are some things you just have to take a shot in the dark at. Plus, you can’t argue with numbers. If the concern is that you simply do not know that your target audience, community, stakeholder group or demographic is participating in social media, just take a peek at this:
Given that the world’s population is currently 6,827,300,000;
LinkedIn has over 10 million registered users.
That’s approximately 1/680th of the world’s population.
Twitter has over 100 million registered accounts.
That’s approximately 1/68th of the world’s population.
Facebook currently has more than 400 million active users.
That’s approximately 1/17th of the world’s population!
Now obviously there are other considerations in these stats and calculations but the very simple point is clear; a portion of your target audience IS online in these social spaces. And if it isn’t where they exist all the time, in the least there is an opportunity for growth should you choose to at least place a presence in these social networks. Don’t be like Nike in this; don’t make up excuses and only see the risk in joining the conversation (or in their case, the risk in offering a certain in-demand product). Don’t fail to take action one way or another by either joining or providing viable reasons for why you’re not joining (in Nike’s case, they chose to instead insult their competition and their potential target market by claiming “toning” products were compromising in the integrity of athletic footwear). And most definitely, when you can see activity from your target market in social networks managed by or shared with your competition…don’t stick your head in the sand! Take action!
I’ll talk more about things you need to consider when joining and managing your social spaces in my next post.
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