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Here is our review on watch-makers and their presence in Facebook. Most of these brands have a tremendous amount of fans and they engage with them frequently. Of course some of them are more successful than others.

Facebook, the modern word-of-mouth in watchmaking.

When it comes to choose a watch, you better choose well because it will probably be on your wrist for several years, especially when you choose a luxury timepiece. Most of the great watches get to be known thanks to word-of-mouth. And a few of them become legends or icons. In our 2.0 digital world, there is something that is replacing the traditional word of mouth, and that is Social Media. Networks like Facebook became virtual places for watch brands fans to share their passion for luxury watches. Some of these brands understood this powerful way to build awareness and to connect to fans all over the world. While some of them are reluctant to talk to their fans and have established a monolog in their fan pages, others use their pages for customer support, after-sales or even to collect fans photos or videos.
Facebook fan pages

Top pure watchmakers Facebook pages

Here is the top 15 most popular facebook pages by number of fans. Rolex is leading the ranking as the Swiss luxury house is the biggest pure watch-maker in terms of fans.

1. Rolex with 2’373’595 fans
2. Tag Heuer with 1’816’113 fans
3. IWC with 778’278 fans
4. Tissot with 675’882 fans
5. Omega with 636’572 fans
6. Hublot with 540’994 fans
7. Audemars Piguet with 538’563 fans
8. Longines with 473’531 fans
9. Baume et Mercier with 475’487 fans
10. Piaget with 462’266 fans
11. Officine Panerai with 424’187 fans
12. Girard Perregaux with 380’425 fans
13. Breitling with 326’569 fans
14. Seiko with 285’020 fans
15. Vacheron Constantin with 203’824 fans

We can see there are 2 giants, Rolex and Tag Heuer that have a huge amount of fans compared to the rest. They definitely lead the way as true global watch-makers. Swiss watch making leads the way. We would highlight the presence of Seiko as an outsider. The Japanese company demonstrated a high quality on its timepieces and they definitely wrote a piece of history.

Top 10 luxury brands multi-category

Here, some of these names became decade after decade true luxury institutions. While fashion and fragrances have pushed their growth forward, they still do a great work in terms of watch-making. Some of them like Hermès won Swiss prizes for watch-making innovation. On their facebook pages they have a huge amount of fans, not all fans of watches naturally.

1. Louis Vuitton with 16’951’468 fans
2. Dior with 13’487’237 fans
3. Chanel with 11’973’889 fans
4. Ralph Lauren with 7’719’384 fans
5. Armani with 6’371’414 fans
6. Bulgari with 3’011’201 fans
7. Cartier with 2’782’611 fans
8. Hermès with 1’817’605 fans
9. Chopard with 661’579 fans
10. Harry Winston with 241’669 fans

India, Italy and USA lead the way in terms of Fans

When we analyse the growth of certain pages we can see that some countries are over-represented. Some of them can be for historical and business reasons. Others, because they love to like pages (really!). So the top 3 would be India, Italy and USA.
If we take the example of India, it is definitely a country in which people love to like pages. Of course they are also a lot on Facebook. According to Facebook, there are 250 million people accessing their Facebook accounts in India from their mobile devices. It is more than the entire Brazilian population! So they represent a strong percentage of fans. Here is the top 5 facebook pages in watch-making with the strongest representation of Indian fans:

1. Rado has 38% of its 175’196 fans who are from India
2. Hublot has 25% of its 540’994 fans who are from India
3. Tag Heuer has 22% of its 1’816’113 fans who are from India
4. IWC has 21% of its 778’278 fans who are from India.
5. Tissot has 14% of its 675’882 fans who are from India

Indian fans are also extremely interactive, so they will always like, comment and share what you post, which tends to make their community grow in your page. They also like to discuss with Brands, ask questions and they are definitely keen to get answers.
The second country, which is even more surprising, is Italy. Italians are everywhere. They love brands and they become fans on Facebook of all brands they love. Italy has 22 million people who have a Facebook profile. It is a penetration rate of 33%! Italians are very active as more than 64% of the entire population uses internet at least once or more every day. Here are the watch-makers facebook pages in which Italy is over-represented.

1. Zenith has 28% of its 175’492 fans who are from Italy
2. Officine Panerai has 15% of its 424’187 fans who are from Italy
3. Baume et Mercier has 16% of its 475’487 fans who are from Italy
4. Bulgari has 13% of its 3’011’201 fans who are from Italy
5. Vacheron Constantin has 7.8% of its 203’824 fans who are from Italy

Last but not least, USA! The United States of America is the land of Facebook. While some brands are having a hard time to be prophets on their own land, Facebook did not have any problem at all. The USA has 310 million inhabitants. 77% of them uses regularly internet. It is probably one of the highest penetration rates in the world. This means 238 million people. Among this internet population, around 135 million are active Facebook users. So certain brands got pretty much successful on Facebook thanks to their strong awareness in the USA. Here is our top 5 watch-makers Facebook pages by USA fans.

1. Ralph Lauren has 50% of its 7’719’384 fans who are in the USA
2. Rolex has 25% of its 2’373’595 fans who are in the USA
3. Cartier has 19% of its 2’782’611 fans who are in the USA
4. Louis Vuitton has 13% of its 16’951’468 fans who are in the USA
5. Chanel has 13% of its 11’973’889 fans who are in the USA

As we can see, Ralph Lauren and Rolex leads in terms of luxury brands with the biggest amount of American fans. At least in their categories. This sounds logical as these 2 brands are truly institutions in the USA for several years now.
What we also discovered are some exceptional facts in terms of fans geography. For example, Girard Perregaux has 43% of its 380’425 fans who are from Indonesia. Why Indonesia? Well probably due to a successful product launch or a motivated local partner to spread the word about the Facebook fan page. Mexico could be added in our top countries for Facebook as they are extremely active too. Mexico has 38 million Facebook users, which is as much as the UK. The big difference, despite of the total population is that internet penetration rate in Mexico is only 33% whereas in the UK, this rate represents 70%. Some International brands with local Facebook fan pages are pretty successful like Coca Cola, Converse or Sony Playstation. In luxury Watch-making, Audemars Piguet leads the way in terms of Mexican fans within the global Facebook page. They represent almost 10% of its 535’563 fans. Holé !

While Rolex is the biggest watch-maker on Facebook in terms of fans, multi-product Brands like Louis Vuitton or Dior are true killers in terms of number of fans. Brands are still growing their fans audiences on Facebook, either organically (still) or with fans acquisition campaigns. The luxury companies are still wondering how to engage with fans on a personal level, which is always an issue, especially if you have millions of fans. Not so simple. Company pages are very popular and most of the time brands do not ask themselves if they should have a page, but more how to have it and in which way? Facebook declared that 11 million established middle-big businesses have a Facebook company page. And if you think about the small companies, then we are talking about 35 million. So we are definitely in the Facebook era.
luxury brands on facebook

In conclusion, Facebook is definitely a great place for luxury brands and for watch-makers. It has something we call “time”-line any way right?
LA

Info sourced at Facebook stats, Social Bakers and Wikipedia. All content is copyrighted with no reproduction rights available.

Facebook luxury brands