Adidas. Wow, what a world famous, popular name that is. The shoe brand that athletes in professional sports wear? The brand that makes jerseys and other equipment for professional sports leagues? The brand I wear on a daily basis? Yes, yes, and yes! Wow, what a great brand, they must be killing it in everything they do!
Well, almost in everything they do. Whenever we are talking about big name brands like Adidas, we immediately become jaded by the wonder and awe that famous companies offer. They have billions in riches, worldwide fame, and a household name. We think that a company like that can do nothing wrong. And we are fools for thinking that. Adidas has accounts across all popular social media channels, such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. They do have their share of wins they achieve on social media, but it is also important to highlight their bad moments as well. Without giving attention to their fails on social media, we would never be able to promote healthy change. Here are the two good and two bad practices Adidas is doing on social media:
1. Add Value to Your Brand Through Content
The first good practice to highlight that Adidas does is they add value to their brand through content. As my classmate Andrew discovered, Adidas adds great value to their brand by posting about upcoming sneaker releases, collaborations with athletes and celebrities, and something inspirational with their athletes. Hubspot’s, “The Ultimate Guide to Using Twitter for Business in 2020,” tells us that adding value to your brand is one of the best practices for any Twitter user to follow. Adidas continues to kill their Twitter game every time they post, by tweeting meaningful, high quality posts every time they are online.
2. Add URLs
Once again, Adidas is winning the social media game on their Twitter. Sprout Social’s “How to Get Traffic from Twitter that converts“, a way to generate more traffic onto Twitter is to add URLs to a profile. Andrew discovered that by adding a URL into their profile, Adidas would be able to gain more views and recognition on their brand website. It is important to note that Adidas Originals receives a big F on this one, since their account does not include any URLs in their profile. However, Adidas’ main Twitter gets an A. Their Instagram is also passing this test with flying colors, having a URL to their website included in their profile.
3. Respond to Comments
We covered the good. Unfortunately, it is now time for the bad and the ugly. In his brand audit of Adidas’ YouTube, my classmate Ankit discovered that Adidas’ YouTube does not respond to any comments left on their videos. According to Hootsuite’s “14 Social Media Best Practices You Should Follow in 2019”, it is important for brands to be responding to as many comments as they can and direct @mentions. Not only did Adidas fail to respond to any comments on their YouTube, they failed to respond to anyone on their Twitter and Instagram as well. This is a common bad theme they continue across all their social media platforms. It makes Adidas look like they do not care about their audience and are only concerned about themselves. They are failing big time to create relationships with their followers, who ultimately are their customers.
4. Engage Through Captions
Another bad practice Adidas has across all their platforms is having un-engaging captions. Sprout Social’s “Best Instagram Caption Ideas for Engagement” suggests that a posts caption should ask questions or try to make some sort of engagement with the audience. Adidas’ Instagram never makes an effort to engage with their audience through their captions. They’re more like “Here is a post, enjoy it. But if you have a question don’t ask us. We are here to post and to post only.” Adidas continues this trend onto their Twitter. Their captions do not invite their audience to talk to them or to incite conversations in the comments.
Adidas is a great brand that has created a hefty following across all their social media platforms. They do practice some good habits, which have no doubt helped them get to the status they have on social media today. However, with the amount of frequent bad practices they have, you got to stop and think how much better they could be doing if they fixed those bad practices. Check out the links above and see some other good practices that social media accounts should follow. Do you think Adidas is following any other good practices? Can you find any more bad practices? Check Adidas out on all their social media accounts and let me know what you think in the comments below!
Bitty's Social Media Blog 