[Social Media Monitoring Part 2] Nikon Digital SLR Cameras

In the part one of my social media monitoring project, I introduced Nikon as a worldwide first-class camera producer, and dived into their social media strategy on multiple social media platforms. Nikon has been putting much money into social media operation to promote their SLR cameras. In the previous blog I had a quick look at Twitter-based #NikonWarnerSound and I AM NIKON campaign that received fair reactions from its users on Facebook and YouTube. However, it is no saying that Nikon is perfect in utilizing the groundswell. Instead, some major improvements need to be made if Nikon wants to expand the business further and survive the battle of SLR cameras where other rivals including Canon and Sony are powerful as they were.

In the following section, I will have a deeper discover on how Nikon is doing on several major social media platforms. Statistics and certain cases would be used to help my explanation, and comparison with rival brands as well.

Social Media Operation

Facebook and Twitter were two important platforms for Nikon. They serve as places where Nikon’s campaigns happen and where Nikon interact with its customers and potential buyers. Nikon has a Page on Facebook which has drawn attention from over 13 million users. On Twitter, Nikon owns several different official accounts. @NikonUSA is the most popular one with over 200 thousands followers.

Nikon's Facebook page

@NikonUSA on Twitter

Facebook and Twitter are also good places for Nikon to trigger or energize the groundswell, because except for Nikon’s own endeavor, there are many other communities and community cultures built by Nikon fans and camera lovers. Some of them are places where Nikon users share their works and some of them are built around Nikon cameras. On Facebook, there are hundreds of Nikon-related groups, and the most popular one, Nikon Digital Camera & Photo Enthusiasts, has 28K members and updates over ten posts on a daily basis. On Twitter, some non-official Nikon-about accounts even gained more popularity than some of Nikon’s official accounts. For example, @nikonrumors is specialized in talking about rumors around Nikon’s new-released cameras, and it now has over a hundred thousand followers (@NikonAsia has 17.5K followers).

Nikon-based Groups on Facebook

@nikonrumors, a non-official popular Nikon community on Twitter

What is interesting is that Nikon remains passive in their interaction with customers on Facebook and Twitter. Usually Nikon would pick up some of the users’ posts that mention Nikon and give a response (see the screenshot below). On the one hand, most of their posts attributed to famous photographers and Nikon’s business partners, but seldom did Nikon reached out initiatively to average users. On the other, many community articles and user-generated contents were good sources of the groundswell, but unfortunately Nikon never pays much attention to them. For example, lots of camera fans have found much pleasure in creating secondary contents for Nikon and Canon cameras (see the screenshot of one post below), while some others employed Nikon products to create cool arts and sub-cultures. If Nikon could lie more weights on those buzzes, it will find more opportunities to energize the groundswell. 

user-generated content #1

user-generated content #2

From Nikon’s previous performance on both two major platforms Facebook and Twitter, we could tell that Nikon has done well in pleasuring loyal customers, which is to say, most of the efforts were placed on people who had long been the user of Nikon cameras. Conversely, Nikon seems to be less passionate in drawing attention from new customers (people who never use SLR cameras before but have great interest and possibility to buy one. In communities, people all talk about parameters and photographic terms which is hard for beginners to understand, while Nikon’s official accounts seem to be passive in letting outsiders grasp the beautiful of SLR cameras simply. No wonder such a situation would impede more people to step into the world of Nikon.

Data Analysis

Google Trends

In the whole year of 2017, Nikon’s google search volume remained stable. Its search index had a slight fluctuation that is between 65 – 75. And there were two peaks in 2017, which respectively occurred during the sale of Black Friday (Nov 19-25) and Christmas (Dec 24-30).

We might have a more strong feeling of Nikon’s disadvantage if we compare its search volume in 2017 with that of Canon and Sony. It is easy for us to comprehend based on the second graph below that Nikon currently has a weaker worldwide customer basis than Canon and Sony, and that more people are interested in Canon’s or Sony’s cameras than Nikon’s (when people are interested in something they know little with, they would probably search it on google).

Google Trend Index of "Nikon Camera" (Jan 1, 2017 - Dec 31, 2017)

Google Trend Index of "Nikon Camera", "Canon Camera" and "Sony Camera" (Jan 1, 2017 - Dec 31, 2017)

The graph of regional interest may give us a more strong clue of to which Nikon needs to pay attention. Nikon is doing well in Australia, North America, and South Asia. Europe and other parts of Asia could all be a good start if Nikon wants to extend its customer basis.

Social Mention

I collected the social mention data of both Nikon and Canon on 03/17/2018. While both Nikon- and Canon-related topics were equally powerful in reaching more individuals (53% and 46%), Nikon had stronger customer loyalty because there are more discussions of Nikon among social media (80% vs. 47%), and that Nikon was more often talked repeatedly than Canon was (35% vs. 4%).

Social Mention of Nikon (Mar 17 2018)

Social Mention of Canon(Mar 17 2018)

SWOT Analysis

Strengths:

• Customer basis. A decade of social media operation and long-term campaigns such as I AM NIKON have earned Nikon solid customer basis around the world. Nikon’s loyal customers are the best resource Nikon can put to good use in terms of marketing, overseas expansion and energizing the groundswell.
• Good reputation. Professional photographers and amateurs all gave lots of credits to Nikon cameras, especially DSLRs. Nikon’s DSLRs receive high ratings in websites such as reviewed.com, and some of its star products including Nikon D500 and D5600 have been titled as “Best of Year” or “Editor’s Choice”. The data provided by socialmention.com show that 8 out of 9 posts on social media platforms that attribute to Nikon cameras are positive.
• Community culture. So far Many communities are built around SLR photography and Nikon DSLR cameras. These communities distribute in popular social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, making sure most of individuals who like cameras and photography could access to at least one of them. These communities are good places for Nikon to energize the groundswell, and some communities are large enough to spread the brand benefits through word of mouth.

Weakness:

• Lack of interaction. In their book, Li and Bernoff (2011) point out that it is of great importance not only listen to the groundswell but also talk to it. Talking (interacting) is what Nikon seldom did with customers. From the previous section of this blog, we could see how passive Nikon is when reaching out to average users and potential customers. Many previous Nikon’s campaigns were also designed for a small group of customers instead of everyone who are interested in cameras and photography.
• Need new ideas for its social media campaign. Most of Nikon’s social media campaigns were perfect ideas five years ago. But it will be growingly harder for those campaigns to draw attention from the population. Amazingly, Nikon still keeps their traditional way of designing a campaign – collect user’s works and promote them. New ideas need to be come up with, and they have to be more interactive and product-oriented.

Opportunities:

• The rise of the new platform and new technology. The market environment is changing swiftly today – every year there are tons of new social platforms with new ideas and new technologies come to the market. Some of them are strong enough to replace the old one (e.g., SnapChat). This could mean both challenge and opportunity for Nikon. On the one hand, it would be less productive and innovative to start campaigns on platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. On the other hand, if Nikon could follow the new trends of social media, more chances to energize the groundswell are available.

Threats:

• The cameraphone. The biggest threat for camera producers is actually from outside of the camera market. According to a report from communities-dominate.blogs.com, in 2014 world has 5.8 billion cameras by 4 billion unique camera owners. However, among 4 billion cameras that are actively used only 440 million (11%) are stand-alone digital cameras, and the other 3.56 billion (89%) are photographic units in mobile phones/smartphones as cameraphones. Data from statista.com also suggests that the worldwide sales of digital cameras are decreasing at a considerable rate every year from 2011 to 2016. In 2011, over 148 million D-cameras were sold, but the number decreased to 49 million in 2016. It is hard not to link the poor performance of digital cameras with the rise of smartphones which have high-resolution, user-friendly and cost-effective camera functions. Nikon should be prepared for the attack of cameraphones, and think about how to make more people believe that spend more money on a DSLR camera is a fair bargain.
• Strong rivals. Currently, Nikon’s two major rivals, Canon and Sony, are more popular and renowned in many regions and countries. They will not give up their upper hands in the area of DSLR cameras since the business is quiet lucrative. To survive the battle, Nikon needs to think differently than its rivals and present this difference in social media campaigns.

Conclusion

Goals:

• Based on my entire research, it is imperative for Nikon to change their social media strategy, and replace the gravity on how to extend customer basis, which is to say, how to make people with no experience of DSLR cameras become members of Nikon family. In preceding section, we’ve learned that Nikon has good customer royalty, but less awareness among the general population compared with Canon and Sony. Nikon’s future campaigns should make more progress in reaching out to those potential customers.  
• The second goal Nikon should fulfill is building more connection with non-official communities. The rapid growth of communities on multiple social networks is a good sign that shows your brand has not only be accepted by customers but also loved by them. The love of a product or a brand would be the best reason they are in an unremitting effort of introducing your brand to his peers, and the effort would be double if their love has been recognized by you. Therefore, Nikon should participate in and be part of those communities. 

Recommendations：

• Take advantages of online communities. In chapter 7, Li and Bernoff (2011) discuss the power of word of mouth: it helps spread brand benefits to your customers’ contacts without any cost to the company (p. 130). And because it is self-reinforcing and self-spreading, you could expect an exponential explosion of the awareness of your brand. Online communities are good starts of word of mouth, because there are always enthusiastic customers willing to promote your products to their friends and families. Many Nikon-based online communities were built across the social network, and some of them attract tens of thousands of attention every day. It will give a boost to Nikon’s popularity if Nikon follows the instruction of Li and Bernoff to participate in and energize online communities of brand enthusiasts.
• Have more #NikonWarnerSound-liked campaigns. In chapter 9, Li and Bernoff write, “…customers don’t take long to tell you what they want. They use your product and interact with your company…they have ideas your development people and management haven’t thought of yet”. DSLRs were complex machines. Instead of being told why DSLRs are way cooler than average cameras or cameraphones, people would love to be given a chance to use DSLRs and learn by themselves the beautiful world of DSLRs. #NikonWarnerSound was successful because people without any experience of DSLRs could have chances of using them to take pictures for their favorite singers, and share those moments on social networks. This idea could be summarized as “Don’t say, just show. Don’t promise, just prove.”     

Work Cited

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies(1st ed.). Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press.