Audience growth.

A KPI tracked by most brands, the number of consumers who follow your content is a great way to assess whether your message is growing your reach. Having consumers follow your account gives you the ability to talk to them more closely, and given the right content, potentially sway their decisions when it comes to purchase.

So, are we seeing more in terms of the growth of follow base, or has luxury lost its luster on social?

Tracking over 140 luxury brands across three platforms – Weibo, XiaoHongShu and Douyin – new followers in 2023 outpaced 2022 in all three.

▶️ Douyin

Douyin has been the new territory for brands to explore, both from a commercial (see Coach, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren etc. all setting up official stores on the platform) but also from a marketing perspective.Success on Douyin requires very different content than that of other platforms. With a focus on short video formats, brands must take an approach that delivers a message quickly and eye-catchingly.With only 94 of the 140+ brands we tracked having an account it is also the least penetrated platform with a combined following of 27.1M consumers as of Jan 1st, 2024. Brands that are driving the growth? Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Coach.

▶️ Weibo

Considered the ‘dinosaur’ of the three platforms, one might be forgiven for thinking growth had slowed. Well, it depends how you look at it. Adding over 11M new followers during 2023 signifies an expanding audience but given the total audience of the 143 brands we tracked of 91.5M its relatively lower than the other platforms.That being said, Weibo is all about celebrity, and as we have seen with top activations, celebrities are able to drive significant sales (see Boucheron in November).Brands that are driving the growth? Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Prada

▶️ XiaoHongShu (RED)

Many consider RED the litmus test for consumer interest and it is interesting the number of new followers is significantly lower (1.9M new followers in 2023 for a total audience size of 7M by Jan 1st, 2024).However, the relative growth shows that the platform is growing quite well. RED is interesting however in that most content comes from KOL/KOC accounts rather than the official account – with much more in-depth content, and the nature of the platform brands tend to generate less in terms of overall engagement.Brands that are driving the growth? Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci.As the landscape evolves, we are seeing brands shifting focus from platform to platform – a notable example of this is Burberry with a significant increase in performance on Douyin, while a decline on both Weibo and RED during 2023.