Chanel’s bags, clothes, jewelry, and perfumes might be extravagantly priced, but the luxury fashion brand is a name everyone recognizes. For over 100 years, Chanel has maintained its top spot in the world of fashion and glamor.
Today, Chanel’s social media strategy seamlessly combines the decadent luxury of their elite roots and the more youthful allure and vibe of the 21st century. This works across all their campaigns, initiatives, and outreach programs.
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at how Chanel has designed and executed its social media strategy for maximum impact and pull.
Let’s begin by examining their social media accounts.
Analysis of Chanel’s social media accounts
If you look at Chanel’s social media platforms, you’ll notice the brand has retained their traditional luxurious appeal while simultaneously being very modern in their engagement with audiences.
Chanel has gone beyond their niche consumer base and nurtured a widespread community in the realms of fashion and apparel. They’ve put out diverse and relatable content and maintained a healthy relationship with audiences.
It’s no surprise then that this iconic brand has millions of followers across different social media platforms. Here are some of them:
- Instagram: 59 million
- Facebook: 23 million
- Twitter (now ‘X’): 13.3 million
- LinkedIn: 2.27 million
- YouTube: 2.39 million
- Reddit: 14K (run by ardent fans)
Chanel also has other secondary accounts that have hordes of followers, especially on Instagram:
- Chanel Beauty: 6.1 million
- We Love Coco: 400K
- Chanel Beauty Korea: 143K
- Le 19M (a Chanel initiative): 109K
So, how did a niche brand like Chanel gather such a large base of followers?
What makes Chanel’s social media strategy successful?
Chanel’s social media strategy is a well-thought-out mix of impactful visuals that feature glamorous and high-brow narratives. Using social listening, they strike a balance between leveraging their prestigious legacy while staying on top of ongoing trends, social issues, and current events.
Here are some features of Chanel’s marketing strategy:
1. Dabbling in diverse content formats
Chanel’s content strategy tends to leverage video marketing and advertising. Their YouTube channel is an engaging platform filled with interesting celebrity interviews, new product launch ads, animated story snippets around jewelry lines, and teachable videos.
For example, take this set of animated shorts created for their Coco Crush fine jewelry line.
Content like this immediately appeals to a younger audience while the longer videos depicting fashion history and Coco Chanel’s legacy appeal to a more mature crowd.
However, they also go beyond video campaigns.
Chanel’s content marketing strategy includes creating and sharing content in various other forms. They use teaser ad reels on Instagram, story highlights, static posts with grabbing visuals, carousels, text-based content, and retweets.
2. Staying fashionably aloof
On Instagram, Chanel famously follows only its beauty channel (@chanel.beauty), an arts and crafts initiative by Chanel itself called Le 19M, and a publishing house founded by Karl Lagerfeld — an instrumental creative director for Chanel from 1983 to 2019.
In an era of active audience interactions and uber-responsiveness, Chanel’s social media strategy is different but effective. Chanel maintains its cool distance, fueling an air of mystery and unattainable luxury.
Of course, this does not mean Chanel is not engaging with audiences. Rather, their engagement strategy is to create and post striking content, particularly videos and graphic posters, that keep audiences coming back for more.
3. Emphasizing engaging content
Chanel does not merely rely on sparkly visuals and trending music to showcase their brand identity or tell the world about a new collection.
They use social tracking and listening in subtle but effective ways, making them in tune with their sophisticated and discerning audience. And they ensure their content tells a story of beauty, class, grace, and desirable luxury.
Behind-the-scenes videos, collaborations with influencers and celebrities, interviews with industry experts and fashion gurus, and relevant commentary on the fashion and retail industries are just some of the types of content they put forward for social media consumption.
Take their Chanel Connects campaign, for instance. It’s a deeply meaningful and engaging arts and culture podcast. The podcasts feature interviews with celebrities such as Timothee Chalamet, Penelope Cruz, Sarah Margaret Qualley, Savanah Leaf, and Jon Gray.
4. Having consistent branding and product identity
Chanel is so iconic that whenever we hear ‘No. 5’ anywhere, our minds immediately jump to the N°5 PARFUM the brand is so well known for.
One of the ways they’ve achieved this global recognition is through consistent branding and strict adherence to their visual identity. In fact, a brief history of Chanel shows whether a change in world order, suffrage movements, or global pandemics, Chanel has remained true to its brand values and imagery while evolving with the times.
This consistency in branding is evident in Chanel’s collections which hark back to the fluid dressing freedom Coco Chanel envisioned and brought to life for women, way back in the early 20th century.
5. Leveraging influencer and celebrity partnerships
Chanel’s social media strategy also incorporates influencer and celebrity partnerships with people in different fields and industries. For example, take their Chanel Connects podcast featuring culinary legend Ruthie Rogers and Bronx-based chef Jon Gray.
Apart from being featured on their official YouTube channel and Apple podcast, Jon Gray shared snippets on his Instagram account, thus extending Chanel’s reach to wider and more diverse audiences.
6. Making use of rich storytelling
Chanel’s appeal revolves around how niche and luxurious the brand is. But instead of crossing into snobbish territory, Chanel puts their spin on how this narrative is received by audiences worldwide.
Chanel’s social media strategy cleverly incorporates stunning camera work and graphics with a plot, a storyline, or a slice-of-life moment that is immediately relatable and desirable.
Besides this, the brand has a great collection of real-life short films like Priscilla and clips that capture stunning stories from their illustrious history. This makes the brand’s marketing strategy impactful and effective across diverse audiences, reeling people in with their wonderful storytelling.
7. Sharing new collections and launches
When Chanel launches a new line of fine jewelry or puts up their seasonal collections, their social media platforms buzz alive with relevant and informative posts.
You can see above how their current Coco Neige 23/24 collection is being displayed and marketed on their website and their official Instagram page. This prompt and active sharing of their latest products and launches is a great marketing strategy to connect with and engage audiences.
8. Supporting social initiatives
Chanel makes it clear — opulence goes hand-in-hand with environmental preservation. This helps their marketing strategy as it shows audiences they care for causes that matter.
For example, Chanel is a big advocate of sustainability and reducing their footprint to help bring out positive social and environmental change.
Their social initiatives and advocacy also reinforce Chanel’s image of being a brand that truly cares and takes action.
Chanel’s social media strategy at a glimpse
This prestigious brand boasts a large following across multiple social media platforms. Let’s look at how much engagement they truly generate out of their social media strategy:
1. Chanel on Instagram
With 5,772 total posts and over 59 million followers on Instagram, Chanel excels at keeping their audiences engaged. For example, in the first week of October, they garnered over 1 million engagements since they shared their new line and collections.
While they post a lot of videos, carousels are the most popular with audiences, leading to the most number of engagements.
2. Chanel on YouTube
Chanel has 2.4 million subscribers and 1,389 videos. And they’ve generated over 708 million views, proving how effective their YouTube marketing strategy is.
Their content-forward videos and culture campaigns gain them a lot of traction in terms of views and likes. The Coco Mademoiselle fragrance ad featuring Whitney Peak became their most viewed video this last year.
3. Chanel on Twitter
Considering their reserved and limited-to-none interaction approach, it’s not surprising Chanel’s Twitter game falls behind, compared to how they perform on YouTube and Instagram.
While they have over 13 million followers and a total of 4,218 tweets, there has been barely any activity in recent times, subsequently resulting in less than 1,000 engagements.
In fact, they last tweeted in November 2022, featuring Tilda Swinton. However, despite the low activity on Twitter, there is still traffic on their page and interest in their past tweets.
4. Chanel on Facebook
Coming in third compared to their YouTube and Instagram accounts, Chanel’s Facebook page has over 23 million likes. The post with the most engagements is an interview with K-pop idol Jennie, showing how they tap into Korean audiences and global K-pop fans.
An interesting point to note here is how effective their posts with links are: even though they comprise less than 1% of their posts, these generate so many clicks, showing people care enough to leave their current page to see what Chanel is talking about.
Ace your social media strategy with engaging content
Over the years, Chanel has built an empire in luxury fashion and attire, and they continue their effective marketing strategy by using their social media presence.
The key to their social media marketing strategy is:
- Creating and posting content high on storytelling, well-crafted narratives, striking visuals, and impactful messaging
- Using social listening and tracking tools to curate relatable and trending content
- Roping in influencers and celebrities in their initiatives, ad campaigns, and podcasts to better connect with audiences
Whether or not you want to cater to niche audiences or be more widespread in your reach, you can implement a great social media strategy with the right tools.
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