Nike and American Express Need a Lesson in Customer Loyalty and Engagement

After reading Ste-Aira Hatchett's blog post titled "Thinking Like the Consumer," one lesson that really stood out to me was don’t confuse content marketing with advertising. This stood out to me because after scrolling through my Twitter feed, I was surprised to see successful brands such as Nike and American Express have a very weak presence on social media. Both of these brands are practicing self-promotion - something that Aimee Couture brought up in her blog post this week. According to an article in Harvard Business Review, "...for a new generation of consumers who get their news and form their views about the world primarily on social media, it is an essential proving ground" (Parmar, 2015).

Since November 2, 2016, Nike has only tweeted twelve times. Nike has also replied to a handful of people, but unless you follow the person they replied to, the tweet is not on your main news feed. The replies are short, only about five words. This makes Nike appear to be not very active on social media and it shows a lack of empathy. "...Empathy consists of three components: reassurance, authenticity, and emotional connection. Empathy goes beyond simply solving a problem. It involves making a customer feel valued" (Parmar, 2015).

Here is a view of Nike's twitter feed:

American Express's message is only towards current customers, not potential customers, making potential customers feel excluded. The twitter account feels almost like a robot is running it, because tweets are supposed to be short, sweet and to the point and American Express posts things like this:

This tweet is very hard to read, has very litter engagement and is taking over my news feed with things that I do not want to buy.  I found a great Forbes article that sums up this week's lesson pretty nicely- Daniel Newman, CEO of Broadsuite Media Group, principal analyst at Futurum and author of Building Dragons gives great advice:

Are you bombarding your audience with advertisements and products or services you are hoping to sell? Instead, focus on engaging your audience; asking them for their opinions, comments, and ideas on how you could make things better for them. Although pertinent data can be gathered from social media platforms, the main focus should be on listening to the customer (2016).

American Express, when answering concerned customers tweets a variation of the same message: "Connecting you with @AskAmex to see if they can help you" instead of just jumping in and solving the problem. It makes the customer feel as if they are on hold, and that they need to wait by their phone for a response. Daniel Newman makes a great point in saying "If your employees cannot provide that answer, have them ensure the customer that they are working on it and have them follow-up with the customer via a phone call or email as soon as they have an answer" (2016).


Newman, D. 2016. Social Media Is No Longer A Marketing Channel, It's A Customer Experience. Forbes. Channelhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2016/01/12/social-media-is-no-longer-a-marketing-channel-its-a-customer-experience-channel/#20e5c1d44967

Parmar, B. 2015. 50 Companies That Get Twitter – and 50 That Don’t. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from ://hbr.org/2015/04/the-best-and-worst-corporate-tweeters