Peter Wilkinson Panther Social Media
Luxury brands have been slow to wake up to social media, but wake up they have. Because they have just realised that the whole concept of Facebook marketing and Twitter marketing is right up their street.
You can’t advertise on Facebook or Twitter. The whole thrust of Facebook and Twitter marketing is about making real people evangelise on your behalf – which they do either by talking enthusiastically about you, or by incorporating you in their updates. So as a luxury brand on a social media marketing trip, you will be looking for users either to update their status with something like:
“OMG! Just bought new whatever-your-brand-name-is handbag!”
Or perhaps:
“LOVE the new your-brand-name-again range!”
The basic concept at work here is actually quite old, it’s been around since the idea of luxury brands first detached from true upper class products (which don’t logo themselves ostentatiously and which never need to advertise anywhere, Rolls Royce I am thinking of you here) and became aspirational for the travelling classes. Social media marketing through Facebook marketing and Twitter marketing is all about the idea of “brand me” – as in, this is me as a brand. The things I wear and consume define me (hence the logos): and as a social animal, I want to spread my brand in my social circle.
That’s what social media does already. So yes, luxury brands of the right stripe (expensive but still logoed) need to get on board. If you look at some of the most impressive 2011 Facebook marketing and Twitter marketing campaigns (Burberry springs to mind), you can see clear evidence that sales go up when branded luxury takes advantage of the social network.
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