News about Nike’s reported most ever expensive athletic shoe has been spreading like wildfire.  The LeBron X shoes are expected to retail at$315 when they are released later this year.  From the moment the story emerged late yesterday, the topic has dominated Twitter and other social media venues.  This edition of the series of shoes worn by and modeled for NBA superstar LeBron James was debuted during the 2012 Olympics gold medal game.

Reviewing some analytic elements of the emerging news shows some interesting statistics.  For one, regional interest in Nike, as reported by Google,  shows a strong presence in interest from Slovakia.

Statistics also point to a number of social media types of sources in connection to the popularity of the brand.  Among the most significant are Identica, Photobucket, and Twitter.  Facebook surprisingly ranks somewhat low in this metric.

 So all in all, not much of a surprise considering what some consider an outrageous price for a pair of athletic shoes and the market dominance of Nike.  Meanwhile, industry rival Reebok, who markets and designs athletic and non-athletic footwear and apparel, is third in the marketplace to Nike and Adidas, but ranks well in social media and search statistics.  The trend displayed appears to be tied to NHL/Reebok news.

Reebok is a client of Thismoment, the digital media specialist that specializes in a complete spectrum of social and digital media strategies.  Focusing on user engagement, and community building, the experience to users and ease of the marketing are of critical importance for the Thismoment team.  The digital reference integration points exist in the realm of web, mobile, video, as well as social avenues.

Clearly the Reebok relationship is paying dividends for the client.  A quick look at Reebok’s YouTube page shows the results of how Thismoment is able to create  a customized and uniquely integrated presence in this one element alone.

The difference is subtle, yet powerful in that the integration of Twitter, Facebook, and sharing are distinctive and create a more boundless virtual entity for the brand across a number of social platforms.   The characteristic of the service is one where a great deal of social and publishing sites share the same “moments” in time that a company or their campaign wants to share.

They say bad press is still good press or something like that, and I believe the tenor of the LeBron James shoe is one where the majority of people are in disbelief and don’t approve that a shoe can be that expensive.  Despite the notoriety, and looking at some of the statistics, the general sentiment is not a positive one.  That’s not to say they won’t sell a lot of them, though probably not in Slovakia.  That anomaly along with a further breakdown of some of these social statistics indicates that while Nike dominates, their message and mentions are quite broad.  Today it’s the LeBron shoe, a couple of days ago, it was something else, and how much of that is controlled or intentional is a fact known by few.  Thus the case can be made that direct, focused social and digital media campaigns are becoming ever more critical in the mobile, digital, and integrated technology world we have today.  It is an advantage to not only make a marquee product known, but to curate how that message is passed along.