Advocate, a full-service marketing agency, has released the findings of its inaugural Social Media Index for the luxury car market in Australia.
The intent of the SMI is to build a reputation as a key quarterly tracker of the social media performance of nine luxury brands: Alfa Romeo, Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Volvo.
It measures across key social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Over the January to March period (Q1), Advocate analysed more than 21 million automotive social media post engagements using technology and their own data specialists to develop a score-based ranking for each key social media platform, as well as an overall Q1 social media ranking.
“Land Rover’s success in topping the rankings of our first SMI report for the luxury automotive sector is testament to their strong focus on putting out quality, relevant and frequent content on social media,” said Mark Milner, MD of Advocate.
Land Rover was first, followed by Jaguar, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes Benz, Audi, Volvo, Lexus, Alfa in spots two to nine.
The report found that luxury car brands were, in particular, missing out on the power of Instagram.
“Given the level of social media post engagements achieved on Instagram over Q1, all brands need to spend more time building their followers on this social media platform,” said Milner.
“As an example, Mercedes-Benz who top the Instagram page rankings has 137,000 followers, but 600,000 followers on Facebook. With higher engagement rates being achieved on Instagram, putting more effort into growing followers on this platform through quality, relevant and frequent content could reap massive rewards for brands.”
According to the findings, the brands had an inconsistent approach to LinkedIn, and had almost abandoned Twitter.
Milner said, “Neglected social media accounts aren’t neutral. They can seriously erode consumer confidence in a business and the automotive sector is no exception.”
“Social media helps to drive online findability and with the main platforms almost operating as their own search engines, ignoring any of them means a lost opportunity to be seen and engage with potential customers.”
Brands should also capitalise on social video, given that 58 per cent of all car buyers watch videos as part of their research process, according to the Think With google Automotive Report 2019.20.
“Depending on the social media channel, between 74 per cent and 96 per cent of all content posted by the luxury car brands in Q1 was image based,” said Milner.
“With 70 per cent of Australian car buyers saying online videos convinced them to think positively about an automotive brand, and 65 per cent saying online videos introduced them to a new vehicle they had not considered before – the luxury car brands are missing out on the compelling power of video content in their social media strategy.”
