Luxury Brands Leading the Way in Social Media Branding
Brands are taking full advantage of the benefits in engaging with their audience on social media, and these efforts are led by a number of luxury brands, according to a recent report by Shareablee, a social analytics company.
After analyzing over 100,000 brands and 600 million interactions, the brands that stood out included some of the most well-known in the fashion and automotive world, including Mercedes-Benz,
who took the top spot and was followed in second by BMW. The fashion world rounded out the top five with Valentino, Michael Kors and Victoria Beckham all finding success in the social media realm.
That these brands are finding most of their successes on the more visually-based platforms should come as no surprise. The strong suits of these brands lie in their visually appealing products, speaking to a number of their brand characteristics that carry weight and recognition when seen.
This is shown in the report where the average number of brand followers on Instagram increased nearly 250 percent – these brands are taking advantage of the mainly image-driven platform that Instagram provides and showing off their products and visual aspects of their brand personas.
Additionally, social media provides these luxury brands with the opportunity to connect to a broader audience than they have potential consumers – to follow BMW on Twitter or “like” Michael Kors on Facebook doesn’t cost a penny, so although a consumer may not be in the market for one of their products, a social media engagement can still be a feasible way to connect the consumer to the brand, which is especially powerful when that brand’s persona is one that is aspirational for the consumers, like BMW, who has a high-class connotation among its fans.
From a branding perspective, this connection is vital to maintain their hard-earned brand equity, which is one of the main factors to maintaining their status among the luxury brands. Without the influence in the online and social media realms, and without the ability to market to the masses, these brands would see a serious drop in their ability to compete on the global market.
For example, take Christian Louboutin, the #6 company on Shareablee’s list. The luxury shoe designer has a brand that is respected the world over for its products, but many of its fans are likely unable to afford to purchase anything from the designer’s line. However, they can still feel the connection through social media, which drives positive brand connotations among this same audience.
For a brand, this connection with their audience and subsequent positive audience opinion goes a long way in staying among the crème de la crème of brands, a characteristic which in itself can propel a company to success.
Image Sources:
http://us.christianlouboutin.com/us_en/LouboutinWorld#opi2240509114
http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/report-fashion-and-automotive-brands-dominate-social-media/624319
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