At Socialbakers’ Engage 2015 event in Prague today Lamborghini’s head of digital Roberto Ciacci described how the business had developed its social strategy since 2011.

The first challenge was to reclaim its brand name and digital properties, as they had been pinched by fans and other third parties.

This was the ‘retrieval’ part of Ciacci’s plan, which involved four further stages that were developed over the next four years.

  • Trust: Lamborghini aims to make its social communications authentic, which was initially a challenge as people didn’t believe the brand was using social.
  • Growth: The brand had to focus on growing its audience, which involved a new content marketing plan, content design, editorial calendars, and strategies for each social channel.
  • Governance: As the social communities grew Lamborghini had to improve its governance, which meant finding new tools and processes. As part of this its social team also gained new members.
  • Brand protection: Lamborghini still has to work hard to protect its brand image and voice online.

According to Ciacci: “We love communities, but we don’t like abusers, so we have to find the right balance.”

As a result of this overall plan, Lamborghini has experienced huge growth in its social channels. Though obviously some of this would have occurred naturally anyway.

Content creation

A quick word on content creation, which is a perpetual problem for all marketers.

In response to a question from the audience, Ciacci said that all of Lamborghini’s internal departments help to develop content, with guidelines in place to ensure it reaches the necessary editorial quality.

This helps to create an authentic representation of the brand rather than contrived marketing messages.

It also means that the company doesn’t have to invest a huge amount in content creation as all departments are naturally involved in finding opportunities for storytelling.

2015: a new challenge

So what does 2015 hold for Lamborghini’s social strategy?

Ciacci has the challenge of making the company ‘the most desirable luxury super sports car brand.’ But while the company’s products make this feasible, how can you accurately measure desire?

It involves a combination of engagement and loyalty, which are tracked using a complex set of metrics and KPIs.

Engagement is a measurement of interactions with its audience. This includes:

  • Interactions.
  • Average engagement rate. 
  • Engagement rate per post type. 
  • Strong/weak engagement rate.

While loyalty is measured using these metrics:

  • Audience growth.
  • Churn rate.
  • Average pageviews.
  • Feedback rate.

Lamborghini’s list of social KPIs runs to 170 pages. And here’s what some of the company’s loyalty metrics look like:

Challenges

And to finish, Ciacci described the key challenges that Lamborghini faces in 2015.

  1. How can brands counter falling Facebook reach? Lamborghini never invests in advertising, so how to counter this?
  2. Is advertising now a ‘must-have’ to boost brand reach?
  3. Is there room to move content design to the next level? How can the brand continue to innovate and excite its fans?
  4. What are the opportunities behind new social channels, such as Periscope or Snapchat?
  5. Is influencer marketing the best/only option in the luxury market?
  6. Is there an opportunity for deeper integration between owned and paid social content?

And for more on this topic, read our post comparing how Lamborghini and Ferrari approach digital marketing.