Social Media Engagement in China: Top 20 Luxury Brands

A new annual report from the L2ThinkTank has been released today, giving insights into which big-name luxury brands are best engaging with Chinese consumers in 2011. The researchers dub it a “China IQ” – a measure of a company’s effectiveness on the web and social media among China’s growing middle-classes.

The report’s authors stress that “success in the world’s fastest-growing prestige market is inextricably linked to digital competence.” They’ve identified a list of top 100 companies in this regard, but we’ll boil it down to 20 top web and social media engagers.

Before we identify those brands, how big is the luxury market in China?

Looking at the above graph, we see a realistic, “addressable” market amongst the world’s populace who have an income of over US$30,000. China, pictured in red, is the only region that’ll experience exponential forecasted growth from now to 2025. Europe still has potential, as eastern European areas develop and its own middle classes emerge. The US, however, looks stagnant. These figures point to how crucial it is for a brand – especially in the luxury sector – to follow the new money to China and other parts of Asia.

Top 20 “China IQ” List For 2011

And the winner is… Audi. The German carmaker has already been a hit in terms of sales in China, and now they’re getting better at digital engagement as well. The report praises the way that Audi “maintains presence on six different social media sites in addition to its own OurAudi.com.” The lead image shows Audi’s official Sina Weibo page. Now if only Audi drivers can raise their own IQ and stop driving like asses…

Second is Burberry, the British fashion label that we’ve seen working with check-in service Jiepang, and launching a new brand channel on Youku.

BMW is in third place, and rounds out the three companies that are labelled as “genius”-level in terms of digital engagement in China.

The Swedish – oh, wait, I mean Chinese – automaker Volvo had a good social media year with a Sina Weibo-based campaign in which Weibo users could design the plot of its next TV ad.