The entire marketing community is promoting the value of social media to brands and retailers as a way to inexpensively communicate with consumers. Consumers are spending a lot of time on Facebook, the pages are free, so it all adds up to a great ROI. But, we still have a long way to go according to this study from InMoment – formerly Empathica.
Luxury consumers still rely on the brand and dealer to get the majority of their information and only about 12.5% interact on social media sites with the brand, before making a purchase.
What’s not clear is what causes this low level of interaction. Is it that luxury consumers don’t trust social media or that luxury brands and their retailers haven’t populated social media sites with enough good information to make it a go to resource?
Even without knowing the answer to why the percentage is so low, I would still consider social media a viable medium to communicate with consumers and I would try and get better at it, not ignore it. My reasoning is simple, social media is popular and free of publication cost, so the cost of reaching 12.5% is worth the effort. And, if the content improves on social media sites, so too will the number of interactions with consumers increase.
Make sure your marketing portal/ad builder is loaded with social media tools.