Since last January, the world is facing an unprecedented emergency with the spread of Covid-19 (Coronavirus). After the outbreak began in China in March, most Western countries implemented containment measures and declared lockdowns. The outbreak forced many of us into home isolation, and this subsequently made Social Media even more crucial for our daily communications. For this reason, we decided to analyze the impact of the Covid-19 emergency on our panel of over 25K social accounts relevant for fashion, luxury, beauty, and lifestyle industries to evaluate any changes in their activity on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
With our study, we monitored the Social Media behavior of three key categories: Brands & Stores, Celebrities & Influencers, and Media & Journalists. For each, we highlighted a case study to explain how they changed their communication due to the health emergency.
3 CASE STUDIES ON THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 EMERGENCY ON LUXURY AND LIFESTYLE
Brands & Stores - The #playfortheworld campaign by Nike
From March 2 to 29, on average, Brands and Stores reduced the number of posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter by -10.8% with a consequent decrease of -15.7% in Engagement. Only 6% of their total content was explicitly focused on Covid-19, but we have to highlight the collective effort to support charity projects and to help to share precautionary measures. Among Brands, a new Nike campaign achieved notable visibility on Social Media. The day after President Trump declared New York state a major disaster area, the US Corporation, one of the global leaders in sportswear, invited their followers on Instagram and Twitter to unite, launching the hashtags #playfortheworld and #playinside. Many famous athletes including Cristiano Ronaldo, Lebron James, and Serena Williams, shared the hashtags, leading this campaign to achieve Engagement of 12.2M and Reach of 248M.
Celebrities & Influencers - The Ferragnez commitment
Celebrities and Influencer increased the number of posts, on average, by only +0.5%. This marginal growth caused a small average decrease in Engagement (-1.5%). They dedicated 11% of the posts to the Covid-19 emergency, including modified content to help followers deal with quarantine e.g. workout sessions, beauty how-to videos and cooking tips. The digital entrepreneur Chiara Ferragni and her husband, musician Fedez, were among the first Western celebrities to lead this trend. Apart from launching a fundraising campaign for San Raffaele hospital in Milan, reaching over €4M in a few days, they described their self-isolation and entertained their communities with DJ sets and live concerts. Their posts related to Covid-19 gained Engagement of 32.8M and Reach of 373.6M.
