Building a successful marketing strategy on social media in today’s connected world How to develop a positive brand’s image on social media and avoid crises communication: a case study of Nike

Details

Supervisors

De Cock, Sylvie ; Sabina Gishvarova

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en communication multilingue

Abstract

This dissertation sets out to examine how social media should be used in a business context, as well as how to develop an efficient brand’s image on social platforms. Moreover, we are going to analyze how to avoid but also handle crisis communication cases. Throughout this work, we answer these questions based on a case study focused on Nike inc. The reasoning for choosing this company as a case study is that it constitutes a great example of the importance of constant development by researching,evaluating,adapting, improving and innovating in order to build a successful business strategy in today’s connected world. In addition, Nike has used efficiently the different existing social media platforms to increase its market presence and expand its customer base. Finally, Nike faced several crises in its history and has learned from its previous mistakes to eventually adapt to societal and environmental challenges of our time. Therefore, using the case of Nike to establish and draw lessons from Phil Knight’s brand’s experience appeared as appropriate and relevant. The objective of this MA-thesis is to deeply analyze the opportunities but also the challenges that social media offers, and learn from what was previously done. Both the efficient strategies and mistakes are going to be examined in this dissertation, and lessons will be drawn from these. This dissertation is structured as follows. In the first chapter, we will discuss the importance of social media in a business context and we will focus more in depth on the communication side of social networks. In addition, we will report the results of our interviews with professionals of social media campaigns, who shared their opinions and experiences on this matter, offering this work a bigger credibility. In the second chapter, an examination of various crisis faced by Nike will be made and solutions as well as management tools will be given. Finally, a general conclusion will be presented to summarize the main points raised in this thesis.