SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN ITALY

In any industry you really have to know a culture well to be successful in a foreign market. I have to say I am putting to use pretty much everything I learned during my Graduate studies of International Marketing and Consumer Behavior when working with the Italian market. However social media marketing complicates things even more. Let's take Italy for instance:

Social media networking is alive and well in Italy. It has been embraced by not only teenagers but also men and women of all ages, demographic groups, income levels, professionals, and non professionals. It has been embraced on a friendship use primarily. It is a great place to post photos, make arrangements to see eachother, stay in touch with friends, lovers, etc. Even the majority of businesses while on Facebook for instance or MySpace are still not taking advantage of their full business generating potential.

Most of the brick and mortar businesses owned by couples whose children are now old enough to use the Internet are utilizing social networking. The same is true for large, medium and small family owned companies.  In house someone (usually the child of the owner who is old enough to understand Internet) mostly sets up the business profile page and then sends it out to the family's friends and friends of friends and that's about as far as it goes. They wonder why they are not getting any increased income from the social network. They did not do any research to even find out if that social network is appropriate for their business. In Italy, it is the standard to follow a fad and social media is a part of that ideology. Many Italian business owners join a network because everyone else is on it and therefore it must be the new "it" thing like buying the latest Gucci handbag.

Is this changing? There is not a lot of education being diffused in Italy on how social media can really be utilized to create increased engagement and revenue. You receive a lot of blank stares from business people when you talk about return on conversation, sharing valuable content, etc. Italians are social by nature but with people they already know. It is not like an average Italian person to strike up a conversation with a total stranger and the virtual world is no different. Even Italian business people have a difficult time networking in the traditional sense. It is just not part of their culture. They usually will converse with someone if they have already been introduced and even then the conversation is not so free flowing.

So how will social media pan out in Italy?Great, fantastic on a friendship use level. With regard to business and aside from the Italian giants like Buitoni, Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, etc I believe Italian businesses have a long way to go! Comments??

SOCIAL MEDIA: LUXURY BRANDS & CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

A female affluent consumer walks into a Saks' shoe department. She tries on several luxury brand shoes and then has to decide between two designer brands. The prices are the same. The look, heel, color are all the same. The shoe's comfort is the same. What is the deciding factor?

Another female affluent consumer is internet savvy and has no problem purchasing luxury items online. She is a keen follower or fan of two luxury brands. She is also an evangelist of both brands. She is in the market to buy luxury brand shoes and must decide between the two. The prices are the same. The look, heel, color are all the same. She has owned both brands before and is satisfied with the quality and comfort of both. What is the deciding factor?

How is social media and digital platforms affecting consumer behavior with luxury brands? There is a lot of  information, research, studies on how these are changing the way consumers purchase. Does the female affluent consumer feel an affinity toward one luxury brand in particular because she is a "fan" of that brand? Does she purchase luxury brand X instead of Y because X has done a better job with its digital presence? Is she more apt to buy brand X because she saw today an image on X's facebook page of actress Angelina Jolie wearing X shoes? What exactly is the deciding factor that pushes the consumer to purchase X rather than Y and what then can luxury brands do to harness these changes in consumer behavior?


Below is the 2010 Luxury Lab Index which ranks the top luxury brands according to digital excellence:

http://www.l2thinktank.com/luxury2010digitaliq/luxury2010digitaliq.pdf

Top Ten Luxury Brands with the highest digital IQ (as ranked by Luxury Lab):

1. Coach

2. Ralph Lauren

3. Louis Vuitton

4. Gucci

5. Hugo Boss

6. Burberry

7. Dolce & Gabbana

8. Giorgio Armani

9. Swarovski

10. Tiffany

According to L2 Founder Scott Galloway,
"... 2010 has been a seminal year for the luxury industry, some brands have put the weight of their organization behind digital, while others have stood still and have been left behind.”  “The ‘it’ product in luxury is not a handbag or watch, but innovative social media programs.”

REPORT FINDINGS:

• "Traffic to brand sites from Facebook more than doubled in 2010, growing from 3.4 percent to 7.1 percent with 73 percent of luxury brands registering the social media giant as a top eight source of traffic. Traffic from Twitter and YouTube decreased.
• Brand sites with social sharing recorded annual traffic growth of 42 percent versus 18 percent for brands without social sharing suggesting the increasing importance of social media optimization.
• Digital competence leads to more site traffic. The 21 brands that increased their Digital IQ demonstrated annual traffic growth of 52 percent versus traffic growth of just 8 percent for brands that registered IQ decreases.
• The 39 brands that sell online boast a Digital IQ of 117 versus an average IQ of 79 for the 33 brands that are not e-commerce-enabled.
• Only half of brands engage in email marketing, only two in five are purchasing search terms and only 10% have mobile sites. "