Rohit Bhargava: 9 Ways For Luxury Brands To Use Social Media

(the article linked to above is reproduced here for your convenience)

Late last week I had the opportunity to be part of a unique event for the Washington DC area. Dubbed “All Access Fashion” – the three day event was part of Washington’s response to NY’s Fashion Week and featured many luxury retailers participating in runway shows and customer events hosted at one of the largest luxury malls in the country – Tysons Galleria in Virginia. My role was to be part of a well chosen panel that included the CEO of German fashion brand Baseler and Ritz Carlton’s VP of Marketing and Communications, Julia Gajcak.

Through our hour long discussion moderated by Washington Post Style Editor Ned Martel, a key topic of discussion was the impact of the recession on the luxury market and how luxury brands could retain their customers and brand image in a world where anyone can speak for your brand online. The point of view I shared was that in many ways I believe luxury brands are the IDEAL brands to be using social media and that social networking, microblogging and online content creation represent big opportunities for these brands to really stand out, improve their customer loyalty, drive sales and, in fact, maintain the image they have worked hard to create for their brands. If this seems like overpromising, keep reading for what I feel are some of the biggest opportunities for luxury brands to use social media:

1. Live up to the promise of your brand. In luxury marketing, the brand is critical in creating an emotional attachment that goes beyond just a product or services features. If the value of your brand is built through your attention to service, such as the Ritz Carlton, then how can you use social media tools to reinforce that idea for your customers and live up to it?

2. Find your biggest fans. Most luxury brands have a steady stable of hardcore fans. Often these are the people who buy the products frequently, but it could just as likely be the enthusiastic aspirational customer who dreams of one day buying your product. Luxury automakers have known this for a long time, using tools like social networking to make sure that teenage boys continue to dream of one day buying a Ferrari, so one day when they can afford one, they might.
3. Create exclusive experiences. Exclusivity and luxury often go hand in hand. The nice thing about social media is that you have many opportunities to create things like exclusive private networks or special content that is only for customers or VIPs. The added benefit of this is that you can make those individuals feel engaged with the brand in a way that isn’t open to the general public.
4. Let fans make your brand part of their digital identity. As each of our digital identities moves online, we have new ways of attaching “badges” to our online profiles, becoming “fans” of brands and using other methods to not just connect with brands we love, but to broadcast that affiliation to our entire social networks online.Gucci does a great job of this on Facebook with hundreds of thousands of fans.
5. Track product or service opportunities. People talk about anything and everything online, and when it comes to the category of business you are in, listening can lead to breakthroughs that you may never have otherwise seen – including what your next product line might be or a new type of service that people are wishing for.
6. Identify emerging brand crisis or issues. The real time nature of much of social media means that many brands are seeing news of potential product defects or other types of brand crisis break through social media before they show up anywhere else. This alone could justify the effort of more actively listening to what people are saying about your brand online.
7. Improve retail and/or distribution. Sometimes the challenge in selling a luxury product or service has less to do with what you have and more about where you sell it. When it comes to deciding markets to focus on, many luxury brands simply focus on large metro markets – but social media can help you identify unlikely markets that might offer golden opportunities.
8. Prove customer base and demand. Part of the challenge for any luxury brand, particularly one that is less established or newer, is proving that there is enough customer passion and interest in the brand to warrant being stocked or sold through more mainstream distribution channels. Having a strong base of support through social media can help you get past this hurdle and demonstrate to a buyer that your brand is worth the risk.
9. Share live events more broadly. Often exclusive events are a core part of how many luxury brands connect with their customers. These are, by necessity, closed and focused on smaller groups – but social media could offer a way to let an equally exclusive subgroup participate in the event (or see an archive after the fact).

Any other thoughts from readers working on luxury brands for potential opportunities with social media?  From my conversations at the event, I got the sense this was a dramatically underdeveloped space and I’m looking forward to seeing more examples of brands actively using social media in the luxury market.

Play the video and find out!

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Social technology growth marches on in 2009, led by social network sites.

(the article linked to above is reproduced here for your convenience)

Social technology growth marches on in 2009, led by social network sites

by Josh Bernoff

We just published our third annual Social Technographics Profile in a document called “The Broad Reach of Social Technologies” . The author is Sean Corcoran, with help from out data expert Cynthia Pflaum. The data across North America, Europe, and Asia will be available later today.is now available.

Starting with the book “Groundswell” and continuing now for three years running, we’ve analyzed consumers’ participation in social technologies around the world with a tool called the “Social Technographics Profile.” The profile puts online people into overlapping groups based on their participation (at least once a month) in the behaviors shown in the ladder. We’ve kept the ladder categories consistent to allow us to make comparisons year-to-year, across ages and genders, and across geographies. This provides something that’s often sorely lacking in analysis of online social phenomena: perspective.

The headline: in 2009, more than four out of five online Americans are active in either creating, participating in, or reading some form of social content at least once a month. In a bit more detail:

• In the US, social technology Creators and Collectors grew slowly, and Critics didn’t grow at all. Creator activity appeals only to those who like to create or upload content, and regardless of the ease of blogging and YouTube uploading, this doesn’t apply to everybody. If you believe in the future that everybody will be creating or organizing content, we disagree — it’s a matter of temperament, not technology. As for Critics, those who react to content, this group hasn’t grown at all. Looking deeper into the data, this is a result of a small but actual  decrease in the number of people contributing to discussion forums. Why? Probably because much of this activity has been sucked into social network sites like Facebook.

• At the same time, Joiner activity exploded and Spectators became nearly universal. The explosion in Joiners from 35% to 51% of online Americans reflects the appeal of Facebook, as both press coverage and invitations from friends suck more of us into social networks. Meanwhile, Spectators — those consuming social content — reached all the way to 73% of online Americans, which should end any remaining skepticism about whether this social thing is real. Soon, with the level of social content being put out there, it will be virtually impossible for an online consumer not to be a Spectator. Marketers, if you’re not doing social technology applications now, you’re officially behind. We expect a wave of Web site reorgs and redesigns to include social activity.

Looking at the data by age, we now see that participation among those under 35 is nearly universal (less than 10% Inactives) and even among those 55 and over, about two-thirds are participating. The trend is clear, soon, if you’re online, you’ll almost certainly be consuming social technologies.

We are now releasing international data at the same time as this US data. A few highlights: Europeans continue to adopt these technologies more slowly than in the US, with about 40% Inactives in the countries where we do surveys. The Netherlands and Sweden have the most participation, Italy has the most Creators, and social networks are most popular in the UK. For more details see the summary of Rebecca Jennings’ report on social technologies in Europe.

Asian social participation is typically as high as or higher than in the US. For example South Korea, where I’m going next week, has only 9% Inactives and 48% Joiners, as a result of the popular CyWorld social network site.

The international data by country, age, and gender is here. will be available later today. You can even put the data on your own site — we’ve made it embeddable. In my travels, I’ve found that marketers have a variety of attitudes about social technologies, ranging from “it’s obvious that they’re growing” to “it’s a flash in the pan”. The point of data like this is to provide a real, solid, objective basis for planning and discussion that goes beyond personal experience. No matter who you market to, and in what country, you need to know what your customers are doing. These surveys can help you take that first step+.