Social Listening

     I chose to write about and research Nike. I mostly chose them because they are giant company with many sales every year and I also enjoy wearing their clothing because of the high quality and good fitting clothes they provide. I am also interested in seeing if they have positive or negative reviews on some of their social media profiles. At first I would assume that they do but you never know. 

    Nike offers four primary value propositions. They are accessibility, innovation, customization, and brand status. The company creates this by offering a wide variety of options when it comes to their products. 

    The post above is Nike's most recent post on Instagram for reference. They posted this to show recognition to black and female athletes as they typically do not get enough recognition in America. This got a lot of positive feedback from the community because it is a good overall message to spread. However, as I was reading the comments, some of the community was not happy with Nike at all. Contrary to some people's belief, Nike is now requiring all of their employees to get vaccinated no matter what. People who do not comply with this, will be terminated. A LOT of the comments under this post was slander toward Nike for firing employees who do not want to "put an untested medication into their system." Another critique was that Nike is firing the unvaccinated employees while still taking the unvaccinated dollars from their employees. 

     I respect Nike for brining awareness to the black community is their posts because I like to see them get more recognition. This can be hard though because with the world and especially America becoming more and more politically divided, companies choices to for example, fire all unvaccinated employees, will cause at least some outrage and backlash. I think Nike is handling it the best they can by continuing to support these communities. 

     I have not really seen any responses from Nike on this topic. I looked on their other Instagram posts and on their other social media platforms and have seen nothing about Nike addressing the claims. If I was the brand manager, I would definitely make a statement to all of my customers and address what is going on and at least explain my reasoning. I learned from this assignment is that no matter how large or small of a company you are, you will mostly always have some people that do not agree with the decisions you are making and you must address them as need be to keep the peace in your community before it goes too far.