Luxury and the Social Media Facade
Are luxury brands less popular on social than they lead us to believe? I used to think the more followers you had, the better you are at branding your company- WRONG. When it comes to using social media for your brand image, it is not about the amount of followers you have or how many posts you put out there. Today, it’s all about engagement. And no, I’m not talking about the kind of engagement you frequently see on facebook involving a diamond ring. I’m talking about the kind of engagement that involves social media users to actually interact with a brand. Just as you may be wondering why all 800 of your followers aren’t liking all your pictures on instagram, a brand may have four million “likes” on Facebook, but no one is liking or sharing what they post. What is the point of having that many followers if only ten of them are actually reading, liking, and sharing the brand’s content?
I did some investigating in the experiential sector to measure how luxury hotel and resort companies are engaging with their customers. To determine social reach, I studied each brand’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter following, as well as engagement of their last ten posts on each page. The percentage of audience engagement was then calculated from these social accounts (see table below).
Ritz-Carlton
With the prestigious lion and crown as their logo, Ritz-Carlton embodies the luxury experience. Everyone knows who they are and what service they provide, but are people responding to what the brand puts out there? One can measure the social reach to see if customers are using social media to get excited about their experience and share it with others. When looking at the numbers, Ritz-Carlton had the least amount of social presence compared to Shangri-La Group and Marriott, with 981,317 followers or likes. However, they are actually reaching a greater percentage of their audience. Based on data from the last ten posts of each social account, about 0.22% of their social audience is actually engaging with the brand.
Shangri-La
The famous Shangri-La is a well-know luxury hotel group around the world. Their social accounts fell somewhere in between Ritz-Carlton and Marriot with about 1.3 million people to make up their social audience. However, even with more followers than Ritz-Carlton, they have less engagement with their audience. Only 0.12% of their total social following actually interacts with their content.
Marriott
While Marriott is an extremely successful, international company, they may not be managing their social media properly. Marriott has at least two times more followers or likes than both Ritz-Carlton and Shangri-La. At first glance, it seems they are doing very well in the social media world.
They have the most Facebook likes and more followers on Twitter than each of the brands, along with a strong following on instagram. However, when we look at their total engagement, 1,473 actions, compared to the total social audience, 2.76 million, only about 0.05% of their audience engages with the content. This means their social accounts are extremely lacking when it comes to followers interacting with their posts. Marriott also makes up the majority share of voice when it comes to Google search results- a lot of people are looking for their brand. If they have that many people viewing their posts, why are so few actually engaging with them?
What’s the deal?
Although Marriot seems to be the worst when we look at the numbers, none of these brands are actually doing well when it comes to social engagement. Despite the strong followings on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, each of these hotel brands aren’t even getting 1% of their audience to engage with their posts. This means that although they may be posting a lot of content, not many people are liking, sharing, retweeting, or commenting on these posts.
Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La, and Marriott all provide luxurious experiences, superior services, and are leaders within the industry. However, small amounts of engagement lead one to believe they aren’t doing a very good job at marketing their brand on social media. Facebook and Twitter seemed to be where each brand struggled the most. Instagram had the most engagement out of all accounts due to likes and comments on pictures. But is having an okay Instagram enough? When studying their media, each brand put forth effort into their hashtags as well as reposting other users to create some form of interaction. Going forward, it may be necessary for these brands to reconsider how they are using each social account to approach their target markets on media.
There could be other factors involved as well. Are the millions of followers really not responding to anything they post? The low amount of engagements makes me suspicious of how these brands are actually gaining so many followers. Could these brands be paying to look like they have a huge presence? And if so, how does just seeming to have a big following help a brand? Either way, these brands need to step up their social media game.
After these results I’m starting to think these companies should take some advice from Kim Kardashian…
This post was created as part of the Global Luxury Management Program at the NC State Poole School of Management. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
