Social Media Monitoring for the Luxury Fashion IndustryAn Investigation Focusing on Radian6 and

Salvatore Ferragamo

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIAFACOLTÀ DI ECONOMIA, GIURISPRUDENZA, INGEGNERIA,

LETTERE E FILOSOFIA, SCIENZE POLITICHECORSO DI LAUREA INTERFACOLTÀ IN

COMUNICAZIONE, INNOVAZIONE, MULTIMEDIALITÀ

Supervisor: Dear Professor Costa Assistant Supervisors: Dear Professor Porta Dear Professor Fattore – Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

Degree dissertation bySofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Introduction

Social Media AnalyticsSocial Media Monitoring

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Luxury Fashion Brands & the Web

Luxury fashion brands’ personality traits

Luxury fashion in the era of the Web • Bloggers & users, fans & customers• Mobile devices• E-commerce• Digital communication platforms & content• Social media• Advantages & risks• Noteworthy trends

Luxury fashion brands & digital marketing strategy• Engagement – wide audience: fans & aspirational customers• Exclusivity – niche: established customers & insiders

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Social Media Monitoring & Social Media Analytics

Analytics – Basic quantitative and qualitative indicators: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Monitoring – Three main activities: listening, structuring, analyzing. Tailor-made

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

The Salvatore Ferragamo Case Study

Brand personality traits• Traditional craftsmanship• Aesthetics: balance & harmony, Renaissance’s classical beauty• Italian spirit• Luxury, glamour• Cinematic, iconic• Art & culture• Innovativeness

• Web site & social media• Blog & news coverage

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Research

Online Brand Presence & Digital Initiatives

Recent & current digital marketing & communication initiatives

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

The Research. Phase One: Radian6

The research’s aims

Widgets:• River of News• Conversation Cloud• Topic Analysis• Topic Trends• Influence Viewer

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Learning about the tool: Configuration Board & Dashboard

Phase Two: Early Results & Tool’s Performance

• Web coverage and scrapers• Facebook and privacy• Significant results vs. noise• Connotative content?

Mass of users vs. influencers• Extracting meaning from data

Devising a new strategy

Main issues

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Twitter & online influencers

Phase Three: Twitter & Online Influencers

Influencers: five clusters• «Magazines»• «Industry»• «Bloggers»• «Celebrities»• «Retailers»

• Presence?• Identity: fake, fan & local profiles• Privacy: private Twitter handles• Tweets: links, hastags, mentions

Twitter as a communication channel

Radian6: Final tests with Source Filters

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Phase Three: The Brand Traits Research

• Unresponsiveness & noise• Tweet vs. retweet• Superficiality, brevity; connotation, ambiguities & peripheral meanings

Results

Conclusions• Most frequent topic: specific products, direct contact• Brands, fashion industry insiders & media vs. mass of users• Twitter as a loudspeaker: amplifying investments• The importance of checking results manually

...Significance?

Key influencers

• «Tradition»• «Italian spirit»• «Cinematic»• «Equilibrium, harmony, symmetry»

Categories

• «Artistic quality»• «Expensiveness»• «Modernity»

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Phase Three: Brand Personality Traits on Twitter

• No. of tweets, no. of retweets• Sentiment: positive, negative, neutral• Links: landing pages• Categories: «Product», «Editorial», «Campaign», «Brand», «Off-topic»

#SalvatoreFerragamo

#BottegaVeneta

#Gucci

Expectations... and actual results

Devising a method of analysis

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Brand Personality Traits on Twitter: Results

Categories

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Brand Personality Traits on Twitter: Results

Sentiment • positive, neutral (40-50% each), except #Gucci (71% «Off-topic»)

No. of retweets • proportionally low (6-19%) compared to total no. of tweets

Landing pages1. Instagram, fashion blogs, photographs directly uploaded on Twitter2. Facebook, YouTube, other websites3. TwitPic, YFrog, WeHeartIt

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Final Conclusions

• Detailed inspection of the field of inquiry • Specific queries • Tailor-made, definite moment in time• Executed and checked manually

On how to execute a social media monitoring investigation

On the nature & efficiency of currently available social media analytics & social media monitoring tools, first and foremost on Radian6

On Salvatore Ferragamo’s online presence, brand image andmarketing & communication strategy, also in relation to otherluxury fashion brands

On the nature of current online conversations on luxury fashion brands

Covering: marketing & advertising; new media; web design; linguistics; professional ethics and deontology

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

Thank you for your attention!

Social Media Monitoring for the Luxury Fashion Industry An Investigation Focusing on Radian6 and Salvatore Ferragamo

Degree dissertation by Sofìa C. Perez Pannelli

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIAFACOLTÀ DI ECONOMIA, GIURISPRUDENZA, INGEGNERIA,

LETTERE E FILOSOFIA, SCIENZE POLITICHECORSO DI LAUREA INTERFACOLTÀ IN

COMUNICAZIONE, INNOVAZIONE, MULTIMEDIALITÀ