Chanel's First Post on Insta #THEONETHATIWANT

Let’s talk luxury and social media. A few months ago, I had been looking at Chanel’s social media strategy as part of some work I was doing. I was looking at their Instagram account – and I kept searching for Chanel and refreshing my phone because I thought there was an error when I saw that they had not posted any photos. Not only had they not posted any photos, but they had over a million followers. This was no error.

This past week, I came across an article in Adweek titled “Chanel Got 1.8 Million Instagram Followers Virtually out of Nowhere”. I strongly disagree with this statement - Chanel didn’t get these followers out of nowhere, they got them because they have such a strong brand and marketing strategy. The article says that “After only one day of Instagram work, Chanel is already ahead of a good number of its high-end fashion competitors in terms of audience on the social channel” but then mentions that “…it appears that the brand opened its account some time ago, built up a considerable backing organically” so at least they realized this was not a result of just a few Instagram posts. I had observed their account months ago and saw that they had built a strong following before even posting.

Chanel’s first post was a video that features a snippet of an upcoming commercial, which gave followers a good teaser to get excited for the full Baz Luhrmann-directed video featuring Gisele Bündchen. The video garnered over 40,000 likes. Part of Chanel’s marketing strategy is exclusivity. The brand then posted numerous photos from a party held in New York, where attendees included the hottest socialites and models in the industry. These photos garnered nearly 158,000 likes in less than a day. Celebs including Karl Lagerfeld, Anna Wintour, Baz Luhrmann, Gisele Bündchen, Lily Allen, Poppy Delevingne, Leigh Lezark, Lauren Santo Domingo and Harley Viera-Newton made it in these photos. Talk about a strong start! Here are some Instagram follower stats of Chanel’s competitors:

·         Dior: 1.78 followers

·         Valentino: 1.72 million followers

·         Versace: 1.3 million followers

·         Armani: 972,000 followers

·         Jean Paul Gautier: 165,000 followers

It will be interesting to follow Chanel’s social media strategy to see how it evolves and if the brand will keep up with the frequency of its posts.

If you’re interested, watch the full video here (just posted today! annnnnd it’s amazing): http://www.chanel.com/