Ask any luxury brand about their marketing and promotions strategies for 2011 and social media will be on the top of the list. Finally and a long time coming in 2010 luxury brands started to recognize the importance of having an online identity. We saw many major luxury brands open commerce sites and start to offer their luxury goods online directly. So naturally social media influence would become an asset to target the affluent market online.
Recently a report from Gartner, an IT analyst firm released an alarming estimate that 70% percent of social media campaigns will actually fail in 2011. So how to escape the majority failure rate and land in the pass zone? Sadly most social media campaigns are not setup properly and no planning is put into place to ensure success. It’s like being in a race and not knowing where the finish line is. You don’t know when to speed up, slow down, stop, or even if you won.
A great starting point for every luxury brand is to measure their influence online in social media and Klout is the best place to do that. Too many luxury brands and all brands alike are focused on getting tons of friends, fans, and followers. For some reason the concept that strength in numbers is what equals social media success. Here I strongly disagree because the value is found in influence and building niche focused friends, fans, and followers. Which often will be much smaller audiences of friends, fans, and followers. The return on investment will be greater referrals, purchases, endorsements, etc.
The most important element for luxury brands in social media will be to engage! Please don’t take this lightly because this is why most of all social media campaigns fail. Despite dishing out some major cash to launch a winning social media campaign. However, in reality the social media campaign is only a “sales pitch” and a really bad one at that. For some reason luxury brands take to Twitter and Facebook to announce sales and promotions. The same rules still apply in luxury SALE is still a bad four letter word. Luxury is superior still and in social media environments this should not change.
In order for luxury brands to be successful in social media they must engage. When luxury brands engage friends, fans, and followers they gain credibility and influence. The vast percentage of luxury brands don’t understand Internet marketing and nor does their luxury PR firms. With that said engagement continues beyond social media.
This is the reason why luxury brands need to also engage friends, fans, and followers with email marketing communications. Because luxury brands thrive in exclusivity building online email contact lists should be much easier. The formula for success online for any business is building a quality contact email list. I repeat, the formula for success online for any business is building a quality contact email list!
If you would like some help Mosnar Communications offers The Luxury Brand PR Insider’s Guide for $49.99 per month. Today you can receive a complimentary trial for 30-days no risk. Designed for luxury brands we provide exclusive strategic planning and approaches for social media and Internet marketing to achieve online success every month.
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