Luxury Brands on Facebook: Analyzing Best and Worst Content, or Why Prada Fans Hate Suits

by Member of TrueSocialMetrics team ~ 8 min

Have you ever wondered how luxury brands are doing in social media? You can easily imagine some pizza brand totally rocking on Facebook with millions of fans, but how about 5-digit-priced purses? In this article we’ll uncover what sophisticated content tactics do marketers of luxury goods use to engage their fans and how they compete with each other. And why Prada fans hate suits.

Photo source

We’ll analyze the Facebook accounts of the 6 top luxury brands, Burberry, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Hermes during Winter-Summer 2014 (1 January ’14 - 31 May ’14). Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all? Let’s go and find out...

Posting Density and Quality of the Followers

One of the aspects to consider is the effectiveness of the Posting Density for each brand. Are they posting so much that they lose the attention of the fans? Or posting so little that followers forget about the brand? We can find out by comparing the Level of Engagement (the sum of all social interactions: Comments+Shares+Likes) to the Number of Posts.

*Engagement = (Likes+Shares+Comments), (for selected time range)
*Posts = Number of Posts, (for selected time range)
Performed with Posting Density Matrix report

Good job, Burberry. And even better job, Chanel and Louis Vuitton - they are true orators. Posting 3 and 2 times less than Burberry they managed to get 30% and 70% higher Engagement respectively. Which means they are spending less resources on content creation but are still getting more attention.

To be fair, we should also take into account the Number of Followers for each account by comparing Interaction Rate with the Number of Posts:

*Interaction = (Likes+Shares+Comments)/ Number of Followers, (for selected time range)
*Posts = Number of Posts, (for selected time range)
Performed with Posting Density Matrix report

The picture hasn’t changed much, except for Chanel looking even more effective.

Another important part of the social media strategy is the quality of the Followers each brand has. How active are the fans and how effective are brands at engaging them? We can answer that by looking at Engagement vs Number of Followers:

*Engagement = (Likes+Shares+Comments), (for selected time range)
*Followers = Number of Followers, (for selected time range)
Performed with Engagement Matrix report

Burberry, Chanel and Louis Vuitton have active ‘Tribes’ of Followers. While Gucci has a huge ‘Crowd’ of less active fans - with 9% more followers than Chanel has, Gucci received 50% less engagement than Chanel. Maybe Gucci should improve their content strategy by posting more engaging content, adjusting their posting time according to the time when followers are the most active, or improving their followers’ acquisition strategy (maybe they are attracting a lot of bots or contest-lovers who don’t really care about the brand).

Takeaways: - Chanel and Louis Vuitton have the most effective content strategy - posting less than other luxury brands they spend less resources on content creation but still have great feedback from followers. And are great at reaching the target audience - despite not having the biggest number of followers they are still able to engage them better than other brands.

• Burberry has a relatively good posting strategy and potential reach (number of followers), but still has space to improve, maybe by benchmarking some good ideas from Chanel and Louis Vuitton.

• Gucci has to conduct an audit of their Facebook strategy to find the main directions for improvement: adjust their content strategy /time to post/ followers’ acquisition strategy.

• Prada and Hermes need to make their presence on Facebook stronger.

Content analytics

Time to reveal the best and worst content ideas luxury brands use to engage their fans.

Performed with Best/Worst posts report

Let’s look closer at each one of the brands by analyzing their top 10 best and worst posts.

Burberry

Worst posts: Looks like Burberry fans are not very fond of music or the Burberry Autumn/Winter ’14 show. Out of the 10 worst posts, 10 are about the Burberry A/W14 show and 5 are about musicians performing at this show.

Best posts: Not surprisingly, Burberry fans are more pragmatic. What interests them more are the brand’s new products they can buy.

Chanel

Worst posts: Somehow, Chanel fans just don’t appreciate the brand’s advice on makeup - 6 out of 10 worsts posts. Seriously, what is wrong with the makeup? And 3 worst posts are photos of celebrities wearing Chanel.

Best posts: 5 posts are photos from the shows, 2 posts are videos from an Inside Chanel series - a great example of brand-building content, and 3 posts are simply video ads.

Louis Vuitton

Worst posts: 3 out of 10 - celebrities wearing Louis Vuitton while the other 7 are miscellaneous, like congratulations on the Lunar year celebration, a link to a live translation of the Louis Vuitton Women's Fall/Winter 2014-2015 Fashion Show, etc.

Best posts: 9 out of 10 are posts presenting the products, 1 is a Louis Vuitton Fashion Show live translation.

Gucci

Worst posts: Gucci fans are not impressed by the Gucci Men's Fall/Winter 2014-15 Fashion Show and photos of famous people with just a name and no context. Out of 10 worst posts, 3 are about Gucci Men's Fall/Winter 2014-15 Fashion Show and 5 are posts with a name and photo featuring a famous person. Like this one below:

Maybe adding some context would have saved the situation.

Best posts: Gucci lovers appeared to be interested in cultural events like the Oscars and Grammys, or maybe just their attendees wearing Gucci dresses. 2 out of the 10 best posts are photos from the Oscars and 2 are from the Grammys. And, of course, 4 posts are just featuring Gucci products.

Prada

Best posts: 4 out 10 best posts are celebrities wearing Prada (women celebrities, mostly). And 3 posts are photos of the products.

Worst posts: Men in Prada. No, really; 6 out of 10 worst posts are featuring celebrity men wearing Prada. Why?

Reason #1: Bad fit.

Reason #2: 78% of users who engage with Prada’s Facebook page are women:

Performed with Audience report

Hermes

Worst posts: 3 video ads, 2 live translations from fashion shows. The video ads are actually brilliant, but unjustly deprived of attention with the way links are shared on Facebook. Unfortunately, there is just a blank white space in the post instead of a preview for those who don’t have Flash installed.

Best posts: 3 out of 10 the best are the photos from Saut Hermès: men and horses are definitely an Hermes thing :) 2 posts - super creative photo sets from Milan International Furniture Fair.

Here’s what the distribution of worst and best topics for Facebook posts of luxury brands looks like:

Notice that it’s hard to find product photos and videos among the worst posts. While reports from fashion shows and photos of male celebrities are riskier topics with a higher probability of falling into the low performing posts basket.

And what about the types of content? What works the best on Faсebook for luxury goods videos, photos or links?

No, it is not a copy-paste mistake, it’s two different graphs, they just look like twins. It appears that the type of content is not as important as the message itself.

Takeaways:

• Be careful with photos of celebrities wearing your clothes. Unlike photos with professional models, the clothes may not always suit and fit celebrities perfectly (well, they can afford it - they are famous anyway :) ). On top of that, the celebrity may not always be associated with your brand by fans.

• Keep up with your fans’ interests and adjust your content flexibly: use Custom Segmentation for content analytics and find out which topics win and lose the hearts of your followers. If your audience is just not that into music or doesn’t appreciate your makeup lessons, don’t waste your resources and time on exploiting these topics. Better post some photos of your products.

• No wonder that product showcases tend to work the best; both in photo and video format. After all, that’s why these Facebook pages were created - to advertise products.