Land Rover is number one in NetBase's social rankings for luxury brands.
Brands often look to social media to forge a connection with consumers and monitor their business’ sentiment, but it is not always love that these brands receive.
NetBase's 2018 Luxury Brands Report found that while auto brands made up 45 percent of the volume of discussion from consumers on social media, beauty marketers are increasingly the most loved with L’Oreal, Estée Lauder and Dior seeing the highest sentiment. Meanwhile, one hotel marketer saw the negative impacts of viral posts.
"The key takeaway is that luxury brands are the most loved brands on social with considerably higher passion and net sentiment rankings on average than brands in other industries we’ve covered," said Elvis Lieban, product marketing manager at NetBase. "Also Instagram is the social media for luxury brands either holding the majority of mentions for a brand, or at least being the single biggest contributor to brand mentions."
NetBase looked at luxury brands on social media from January 2017 to January 2018.
Social conversation
Travel brand Fairmont has generally exceeded its competition in terms of favorability online from check-in and loyalty points, but one tweet from a disgruntled customers saw a ripple effect.
Television personality Andy Cohen took to Twitter to air his grievances concerning Fairmont after a recent stay went awry and the post went viral.
Brands need to be careful of the negative conversations that can arise on social media.
NetBase's top 10 luxury brands on social. Image credit: NetBase.
The viral tweet may have had a more significant impact due to the hotel segment’s lower volume of social conversation. With less people discussing travel and hospitality, the more one viral tweet stands out.
Standing out among the hospitality crowd is Four Seasons, which was the only hospitality brand to make it into the top 10 brands discussed. The brand saw a passion score of 81 with 3 million impressions.
Land Rover held the top spot with a passion score of 100, total mentions of 2.5 million, total reach of 800 million and 90 percent sentiment.
Automakers’ safety initiatives are what seem to be driving the conversation on social media. However, this is not the case with Porsche who is seeing the most activity on social from its upcoming Tesla rival.
The auto brand was followed Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana and Mercedes, respectively.
Fashion brands claimed 2 percent of the share of voice, but most of the impressions made were on Instagram, further proving the luxury fashion market's stronghold on the application.
NetBase's chart for social. Image credit: NetBase.
Jewelry is also beginning to leverage Instagram more often and more efficiently and has seen a voice share of 3 percent with a lot of passion.
Additional insight
Previous rankings from NetBase assessed Gucci as the most-discussed luxury brand on social media, but Tiffany & Co. and Louis Vuitton elicit stronger feelings and Chanel saw greater passion in a September report.
NetBase’s Retail Brands Industry Report revealed that passion and sentiment for luxury brands are mostly driven by the search for authenticity. However, as a whole, the luxury retail sector only drove a 10 percent share of mention volume (see more).
Luxury brands should continue to push their social media strategies to combat the pervasiveness of Amazon, as it maintains the highest mentioned brand passion, according to another previous NetBase report.
While Amazon is the most talked about, U.S. jeweler Tiffany & Co. saw the strongest brand loyalty in 2016 with users taking to social platforms to discuss their passion for the marketer. The findings suggest that even though big brands such as Amazon and department stores see the highest volume, smaller targeted brands see more enthusiasm, which can be more beneficial in the long run (see more).
"While some luxury brands revel in the spotlight, others tend not to overshare on social, for example Loro Piana and Céline," NetBase's Mr. Lieban said. "Some luxury brands are eschewing the traditional brand strategy of being on every social media channel sometimes forgoing channels like Twitter for Facebook and Instagram or focusing exclusively on Instagram.
"Having a limited social media presence can add exclusivity to high-end brands as they can fly under the radar and only the truly tuned in to fashion would know of them."