Nike vs. Under Armour: Which brand has the best Facebook game?

Which brand has a stronger presence?

By: Zonaira Lone

After analyzing both brands’ Facebook pages, I’ve noticed that both Nike and Under Armour have strong marketing strategies that are both very different from one another. Nike posts about twice a month on average compared to Under Armour that posts approximately 3 times a week. Under Armour has more consistency with their engagement on Facebook than Nike because they post more frequently. Majority of Under Armour’s posts consist of a variety of pictures and videos honouring their professional athlete brand ambassadors to gain more awareness for their brand. Nike on the other hand does their social media engagement a little differently. They strictly use only videos to introduce new collections, for commercials or to promote their campaigns that include their professional athlete brand ambassadors. Both brands differentiate when it comes to using the 50/50 rule on Facebook. Nike’s content is all organic and original compared to Under Armour that builds on to existing content, such as popular campaigns to spread the awareness.

Nike and Under Armour don’t use many keywords on their Facebook pages as I expected, but the following are examples of what I currently see on each of the brands’ pages:

                                                              Nike:

                                                                                        Nike Sportswear

                                                                Just Do It

                                                 Under Armour:

                   Performance training shoes

One of Nike’s most successful recent posts was the “Snow Day” ad to promote their #GetOutHere campaign. They encouraged people to not let the snow day stop them from being active. I believe it was a successful campaign because it had a wide selection of popular athletes. The campaign was a huge success with over 198K likes on the post, 9,054 comments, and 128,099 shares.

                                             Check out the full ad to see what the huge buzz is about.

Under Armour’s most successful post was the #RuleYourself campaign ad that had over 90K likes, 2,915 comments, and 27,817 shares. I believe it was a successful campaign post because of the fact that they pinned it to the top of their Facebook page so that’s the first video visitors see. Also because of the fact Michael Phelps, a popular athlete, is the main highlight of the video.

                                          Check out the full video to see what made this post so successful.

Nike has 24,272,107 total page likes, an average of approximately 2,000 comments per post, and approximately 1,000 shares depending on the content of the post. According to the Social Sharing insights from Moz, Nike’s Facebook page loading time is 5.127 seconds, which in my opinion can be improved to be lower. Overall, Nike is a very strong brand in the sportswear industry that has an outstanding appearance on social media.

Under Armour has 36,518 total page likes, but are still continuing to grow. They have an average of about 30 comments on their posts and approximately 100 shares. The data on Social Sharing insights from Moz indicates that the Under Armour Facebook page takes 4.953 seconds to load, which is quite average compared to many other competed brands.