Lamborghini is certainly known for some spectacular automotive performances. As one of the top luxury car brands in the world, the machines they create are certainly something special. However, they were recently noted by Marketing Interactive for their excellence in a different category: social media. They weren’t necessarily “behind the times” in 2011 when they started to seriously use social media, but they weren’t really front-runners either. By being a bit delayed, they had a few different challenges to face initially.
In 2011, when they wanted to start utilizing their social media, they found out they were already on it, with fake accounts right and left. Roberto Ciacci, global head of Lamborghini’s digital said that their first step was to retrieve their brand online: “We put in a lot of effort using our trademark to claim back all their properties,” Ciacci explains. Next, they made their online brand authentic, pushed for growth through a focused editorial approach, then worked to sustain that growth by producing most of their digital content in-house. They’ve now reached the final stage in this process: “Finally, this year’s focus is protection of our trademark,” said Ciacci.
One of Lamborghini’s major challenges as they attempted to step up their social media game was reconciling ways different offices cited achievements to justify social media success. So, today, the company defines key performance indicators in these ways, according to Ciacci:
Interactions: Direct interactions from the audience during an analyzed activity or time span.
Average engagement rate: Average engagement for the analyzed activity or time span.
Engagement rate by post type: Average engagement differentiated by content type.
Strong/weak engagement rate: Distinction on the engagement level based on the strength of the interaction.
There are a few things worth noting about this strategy. First, it’s worth having standards that must be met for all people working on your social media. It can be easy to change the definition of what counts as social media success, but you want to choose four or five ways to really determine what’s working and what’s not. Second, break down how you’re going to gauge activities and time spans: If you’re focusing on short-term goals, make those time spans significantly shorter than those for long-term goals. You should have both, and they should be clear. Finally, spend some time thinking about your content type. What will be the most valuable in reaching both those long-term and short-term goals? Photos? Links? Blog posts? Chunks of text? Find out which of these types customers engage with the most, and go from there.
Look at the “strength” of the interaction as well as the interaction itself: One word comments aren’t as strong as comments or full thoughts. This matters, even though it may seem like a tiny detail.
Lamborghini’s done an exceptional job with their own social media, theoretically by following performance definitions like these. Work with your social media team to establish a similar set, and clarity of work and goals will follow.
Image credit: CC by Axion 23
