Bags / Shoes & Accessories

A few days ago, McKinsey, a world-famous management consulting, and the World Sporting Goods Federation released the 2023 Global Sporting Goods Industry Report: Recovering Vitality in a Chaotic World. The report points out that sports footwear and clothing brands have entered an industry boom period in 2023. Whether it is the gradual improvement of internal self-development or the driving force of external environment, Chinese sports shoes and clothing brands are facing a good opportunity for rapid development and international trade to establish influence.

Today, based on practical cases, we will share with sports shoe and clothing brand merchants who are preparing to go abroad some feasible paths for playing social media marketing in the international trade market. This article is of great reference significance for both sports shoe and clothing brands that are preparing/just going to sea and brands that have already gained a certain reputation.

Overall Characteristics of Social Media Marketing for Global Sports Shoes and Clothing Brands

Feature 1:

Sports shoes and clothing brands have all been deployed on international trade and overseas mainstream social media platforms, and multi account and matrix operations have become the norm. Facebook and Instagram were previously the preferred social media marketing positions for brands in the industry, but with the explosive growth of TikTok in the past two years, 80% of brands have started to layout TikTok.

In terms of matrix construction, it can be mainly divided into three categories

1. Set by region dimension:

Set up different social media accounts for different audience markets and adopt deep localization marketing methods from language, hot topics, and cultural perspectives.

2. Set based on the type of motion as the dimension:

In addition to the regional characteristics of the audience market, some brands also set up different social media pages for different sports categories to emphasize the professionalism and targeting of the brand and products

3. Set based on population as a dimension:

Face the audience directly, segment the social media homepage for different groups of people, and showcase corresponding lifestyles to resonate

Different social media platforms have their own monthly active user scale, audience characteristics, content types, functional characteristics, interaction methods, and advantages. A single social media platform often finds it difficult to meet the promotion and marketing needs of enterprises and brands. The following dimensions can be considered by overseas brand merchants when constructing a social media matrix:

For target markets in different regions and languages, having only one global page is difficult to meet the requirements of content localization, which greatly reduces user stickiness, brand influence, and marketing campaign effectiveness;

In addition, in addition to the main brand, enterprises also have sub brands, and the products sold may fall into different product categories. Faced with differentiated consumer groups, this also requires the brand homepage to be segmented and operated separately.

Feature 2:

Sports shoe and clothing brands mainly post visual posts on social media, while Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram mainly post image content, while TikTok and YouTube mainly post videos

Specifically, the following three types of content are relevant to all brands:

Brand and product name: Whether it's product exposure or video image and text area, brand and product labels will be added to repeatedly emphasize and deepen the brand impression

Topic activity marketing: vocabulary suitable for social media context, stimulating user resonance and promoting interaction and secondary communication

Brand innovation concept: sports spirit, environmental sustainability, cultural connotation

The focus of social media marketing varies depending on brand positioning and development stages:

DTC sports shoes and clothing brand: with the direct goal of shortening sales paths and increasing sales, while opening up online and offline marketing channels (represented by Lululemon)

Actively expanding domestic brands in overseas markets: product and brand go hand in hand, emphasizing brand tone while creating differentiated competitive advantages with product design and technological leadership (represented by Li Ning and Anta)

Old brand sports shoes and clothing brands: brand culture and spirit as the marketing focus, with a greater emphasis on cultivating the interests of Generation Z's young user group (with Nike, Adidas)

Next, let's take a look at the social media layout and gameplay of Nike and Adidas. They are very mature brands in the field of sports shoes and clothing. Studying their paths and gameplay is believed to bring new inspiration and inspiration to businesses.

Nike Social Media Operations Features

1. On various platforms, Nike mainly publishes athlete content, which mostly focuses on winning sports events, new breakthroughs for athletes, or praising their sportsmanship through quotes from athletes, emphasizing the core values of the brand "just do it"

2. Nike has placed Instagram as its operational focus, and in the construction of its social media matrix, in addition to distinguishing between global and regional home pages, it has also set up classified accounts with different functions and carried out unique operations on the accounts, such as Nike's e-commerce account Nike.com, sports account Football, Nike Skateboarding, Nike Basketball, Nike Yoga, Nike Run Club, etc. The regional page content is mainly local content, E-commerce accounts mainly publish product information, promotional content, etc., while sports categories correspondingly focus on inherent sports.

Adidas Social Media Operation Characteristics

1. Red person marketing is the most prominent feature of adidas social media marketing. Its homepage is filled with sports activity content from famous football stars, athletes, and KOLs. It also establishes its own landmark logo in sports events, ensuring a high level of exposure through these methods.

2. Adidas is skilled in cross-border joint marketing, creating popular IPs through collaboration. In addition to launching adidas Originals that combine fashion and sports, it also continuously collaborates with luxury brands or celebrities to develop joint products.

In fact, in recent years, overseas brands have faced challenges such as severe homogenization of products, rapid policy changes, escalating traffic costs, increasingly thin profits, and fast iteration cycles of platform sales models.

Overseas brands are all looking for more incremental space. With the rise of social media such as YouTube, Instagram, and Tiktok, social media/internet celebrities/KOLs have grown with users and become closer channels to consumers, enabling them to reach them more quickly and directly. Online celebrity marketing has become an essential skill for international trade and brand attraction.

Summary: Inspiration for Chinese sports shoe and clothing brands going global:

1、 Build a social media matrix and establish a dedicated traffic pool

The audience of sports shoe brands is diverse, but the presentation of sports shoe and clothing marketing content must be "dynamic". Therefore, in the selection of social media matrix platforms, priority should be given to recommending brands from more dynamic and expressive platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, etc. In the construction of matrix accounts, in addition to localized local home pages targeting the corresponding market, a "functional home page", "product home page", and "crowd home page" matrix can also be built based on product lines or product functions.

2、 Join hands with high-quality KOL to build brand volume with the help of celebrity voice

The reason why internet celebrity marketing has become the darling of overseas brand marketing methods is because it "hits the snake and hits the seven inches". By capturing a internet celebrity that matches the brand category and tone, it largely approaches the fan group behind it. With the trust between internet celebrities and fans, it is easier to break down trust barriers, help the brand quickly expose and establish its image.

There are countless examples of fans' economic magic. With the development of social media today, more KOLs are springing up like mushrooms, providing more channels and paths for overseas brands to reach their target users. International trade and overseas brand merchants can layout their online celebrity marketing as soon as possible.