Social Media Usage Practices of Luxury Brands: A Case of Luxury Automobile Brands' Corporate Social Media Applications

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to determine the luxury brands' practices of using social media environments at the corporate level. Methodology: In this study, corporate official social media accounts of the luxury brands have included based on the list which were examined according to the luxury brand research report by Luxurysociety.com called as "Best Global Luxury Brands". Significantly, this report was realized worldwide and included all product groups of 2014 luxury brands with social media applications, so in this study Turkey was selected. All of the specified brands are car brands and are listed as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Porsche, and Land Rover. In all of these specified luxury brands, content analysis was conducted for shared corporate social media accounts. A study covering one (1) year of content sharing in the social media environments, from 01.02.2016 to 01.02.2017. Results: As a result of the content analysis, social media usage practices of these luxury car brands, it is seen that they share their corporate identity in their official Facebook accounts, but mission and vision sections are more limited in terms of their content. In addition to these, it has been seen that brands use social media more intensively in new products / series promotions, creating interest in product categories, introducing new technologies of their products and introducing accessories / promotions related to the brand in comparison to other headings in the category chart. Their Instagram shares during the chosen period of time, we see shares of contents about the corporate achievements / news, special day / national holiday celebrations, the technical infrastructure of the products, the brand's corporate-level activities, the events they organize in the Instagram account for customers and followers in each brand. Conclusion: In social media usage practices of these brands, it was observed that there are activities (such as drawing, contest) organized in social media environments to create new ways of reaching consumers and followers, as well as marketing-oriented shares about activities (such as corporate social responsibility, other institutional activities) that are realized at the brand's corporate-level.