An analysis of 247 global prestige brands from L2 [download page] reveals that the average prestige brand is present on 7 social platforms. The study indicates that just 1 of the brands tracked – GUM – has no social media presence, while on the other side of the spectrum, 1 brand – Swarovski – is present on 15. A plurality 18.6% of brands are present on 7 as of July, with 15% present on at least 10. A related analysis indicates that brands who are present on more of the top US platforms tend to have better performance in terms of community size and engagement. (The top US platforms studied for the purposes of that analysis were: Facebook; Twitter; YouTube; Pinterest; Google+; Instagram; and Vine.) While presence on a wider amount of platforms tends to correlate with better engagement, the researchers also note that a key factor among these top-performing brands is their investment in paid media across several platforms.
So which platforms are the most popular among the 247 prestige brands tracked?
Facebook use is almost ubiquitous at 99.6% (meaning that only GUM is not on Facebook), while Twitter (95.5%) and YouTube (95.1%) use is almost universal, also.
Emerging platform Pinterest has extremely high adoption among prestige brands, with 83.8% sporting a presence on the site. Instagram (69.2%) and Google+ (66%) are a little further behind, but still see strong investment from prestige brands.
Finally, roughly one-third have a presence on Vine (35.2%) and Tumblr (34%).