Luxury Brands Are Beating Mass-Market Brands Across Social Media

Luxury campaigns perform better than mass brands' efforts across social media, influencer marketing agency HelloSociety recently reported.

Luxury brands' performance rates can be as much as 30 percent higher than mass brands' efforts on Instagram. On Pinterest, luxury campaigns continue their dominance, generating 17 percent more engagements per pin, 32 percent more repins per pin, and 59 percent more likes per pin than mass brands.

Brands are now taking that momentum as a signal to push for even more engagement and stepping beyond simple posts in an effort to drive sales.

A great example of this is Italian fashion label Fendi gamifying its interaction with followers via Instagram stories as part of its pre-fall 2017 campaign.

The choice to use Stories rather than individual posts was a smart one — stories are located at the top of the app and users will check them several times a day. Also, because Stories automatically jump from one to the next, they can increase visibility to followers.

The question is whether these brands are reaching their target customers or reaching an audience that is slightly too young and not quite affluent enough to act on the glossy images.

Although WeChat is not traditionally considered social media, luxury brands are now selling on the Chinese messaging app. Longchamp and Burberry are just two of the fashion brands that sell handbags and clothes with many others testing demand.

Hospitality companies are also testing the market.

The Peninsula Beijing launched a WeChat shop featuring goods and services from mooncakes to spa treatments and dinner coupons, explains Louis Houdart, founder of Creative Capital China. The Peninsula invited consumers to pre-order the famous mooncakes exclusively from the hotel’s mini-program with great success.

As social media matures, luxury brands are less concerned about branding and more strategic about introducing the brand to new customers and ultimately securing a sale.