10 most engaging luxury brands to follow on Instagram

Don’t worry if you don’t actually own a pair of Louboutins or if the last time you walked into Liberty was because you were lost, it doesn’t matter. You can still follow them all on Instagram and pretend you belong in this world. And none of them can throw you out for wearing pyjama bottoms and a Heavy Metal T-shirt while you browse.

Instagram is the perfect place for luxury brands to make an impact, it’s a channel where aspirational content thrives. Although yes, the inherent visual nature of Instagram and the plethora of tools available means that it’s relatively easy to polish a… hmm… I’ll think of a more tasteful analogy for this a bit later, basically you don’t have to do very much to make high quality products look beautiful. That was probably more of a back-handed compliment then I meant it to be.

However, just like with any social channel, for brands it’s not good enough to simply upload posts while blithely ignoring followers. The posts have to provoke a reaction, whether by like, comment or share. They also have to build the community by actively engaging and interacting with people, no matter how scruffy their pyjamas or how alarming their Heavy Metal T-shirt happens to be.

Surprisingly luxury brands aren’t as haughtily aloof as you may expect, and the ones with the most amount of followers aren’t necessarily the ones gaining the most follower interaction.

A list recently published by the Digital Luxury Group looks at the most engaging luxury brands on Instagram in the first half of 2015, and there’s a definite discrepancy between ‘most popular in terms of followers’ and ‘most popular in terms of interaction’.

Here are the most popular luxury brands and the number of followers…

1. Louis Vuitton 5.7m
2. Chanel 5.2m 
3. Louboutin 4.7m 
4. Dolce & Gabbana 4.6m 
5. Gucci 4.5m
6. Dior 4.5m
7. Prada 3.9m
8. Burberry 3.8m
9. Valentino 3.7m
10. BMW 3m

(I should point out that these figures are correct as of June 2015, currently most of these brands have around 1m to 2m more followers right now in October 2015).

And here are the luxury brands with the most interactions between January 2015 to June 2015.

1. Mercedes Benz
2. BMW
3. Ferrari
4. Valentino
5. Dolce & Gabbana
6. Louboutin
7. Louis Vuitton
8. Elie Saab
9. Marc Jacobs
10. Burberry

It seems that you need to be behind the wheel of a fantastically snazzy car to get people’s attention. Mercedes-Benz acheived 38m interactions while BMW and Ferrari followed with more than 20m each.

The other interesting contrast here is Louis Vuitton, a brand that may have the largest number of followers but produces much less engagement. 6m interactions in six months, which is around 84% less than BMW, a brand with far fewer followers.

So let’s take a look at some of the most recent examples from each of the most engaging luxury brands, in what you may consider a nakedly brazen attempt to look at some pretty pictures while pretending it’s for research.

1. Mercedes Benz

Hmm. I’m struggling to say anything more insightful then “Mercedes Benz is clearly winning over its fans with images of its cars parked at 210 and 330 degree angles.” Perhaps that’s the secret of engaging content.

2. BMW

True to real life, there’s not a single BMW here either indicating nor patiently sat behind other vehicles in traffic. It is good to see BMW regularly using Instagram’s video feature though.

3. Ferrari

As evidenced by the first image, it’s difficult to catch one of these in transit.

4. Valentino

A good mixture of product shots, behind the scenes glimpses of the people behind the brand and professional model shots. And lots of fur.

5. Dolce & Gabbana

The fashion brands definitely have the variation in posts down, the sketches are a particularly original touch. D&G (as people in the know call it) has also taken advantage of the new relaxed image size options.

6. Louboutin

Somebody should tell that very stylish looking model that’s not how you ride a tractor.

7. Louis Vuitton

Much of Louis Vuitton’s account is images of celebrities entering various fashionable events wearing what I will expertly assume is Louis Vuitton. Yep, I’m a regular Joan Rivers me.

8. Elie Saab

So not the Swedish car manufacturer? Okay then.

9. Marc Jacobs

I think it’s safe to assume that Marc Jacobs is a man who is living his life to the full right now.

10. Burberry

And finally, Burberry mixes things up well with interesting product shots, video, previews of its retail stores and genuinely pleasant looking people wearing its items in the real world. Plus excellent moustaches.