The key to Victoria’s Secret
social media success
Veena Ramakrishnan
October 14, 2019 • 8 min read
Updated on October 14, 2019
There was a time when people flipped through Victoria’s Secret’s glossy brand catalogs itching to get their hands on Victoria’s Secret. Fast forward to the present, flipping through catalogs is replaced by scrolling of thumbs to view their product images. But the itch remains, more so than ever, to get their hands on the latest brand apparel.
Victoria’s Secret is a world-renowned lingerie, womenswear, and beauty products brand that has an astounding social media presence. Head to any one of their social media accounts and you’ll find yourself lost in their ocean of visually captivating content.
So what really is their secret? Or wait, is social media Victoria’s Secret? We’ve left no stone unturned in dissecting Victoria’s Secret’s social media strategy.
About this report
This Victoria’s Secret social media report was put together using Unmetric Analyze. It listens to over 100,000 brands to help our clients create more engaging content, get more certainty around their social strategy, and automate their reporting.
Sign up for a demoOverall social media strategy
Victoria’s Secret is one of the most followed brands across all major social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. The brand maintains an active presence on social media with a killer content strategy that helps the brand add thousands of followers every day.
Victoria’s Secret has several reigning statistics to its name. The brand is a Fashion industry leader and is the 2nd most followed brand on Instagram after Nike with 68 million followers, while the brand’s Twitter account is the 6th most followed brand on Twitter with over 11 million followers.
We analyzed Victoria’s Secret’s primary social media profiles across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube for the period of January 01, 2018 to September 30, 2019. Here’s what we found out.
This photo/video network has proven to be a great platform for brands to market their products. So it’s no wonder Victoria’s Secret is reigning on Instagram as the 2nd most followed brand with close to 69 million followers. The brand’s showcase of its models adorned in VS apparel helps create aspirational appeal among its followers.
Victoria’s Secret enjoyed a 17.9% growth in followers by gaining over 10 million new followers in the analyzed period—with an average of 32,000 followers added per day!
Content strategy
Victoria’s Secret posted 2,409 times during the analyzed period of which 1,996 were photos and 264 were videos. Photos were also the best engaging content type for the brand.
Instagram is all about the visual appeal and Victoria’s Secret is a master at it. The images posted by the brand are mostly of their models adorned in the brand label set in beautiful locations and rich hues. So it’s little to no wonder why photos are their best performing content.
View this post on Instagram
Campaign
Victoria’s Secret’s latest campaign in collaboration with British lingerie brand Bluebella unveiled its first-ever plus-sized model in its 42-year history. This was a milestone moment for the brand as it began to finally embrace all women with its #loveyourself campaign, which took everyone by surprise. This post below featuring body positive campaigner Ali Tate Cutler has over 600K likes.
Influencer marketing
Influencers have proven to be a great way to appeal to a new market and increase brand reach and Victoria’s Secret has an army of influencers at its disposal. While Victoria’s Secret is fond of incorporating influencers beyond its angel-like models, fans of the brand aren’t.
A little after the brand posted an image of influencer Jenny Cipoletti adorned in the brand label, fans lashed out in the comments section asking the brand to stick to featuring only the brand’s models as the influencers do not represent the brand fans love. These posts were later removed from the Victoria’s Secret Instagram handle.
Victoria’s Secret has over 29 million followers on its primary Facebook page. The brand added 1 million followers in the analyzed period, a 3.2% growth in followers, which is almost 1400 followers added per day.
The brand published 2,266 posts in the period and promoted more than 87% of them. In terms of content, Victoria’s Secret published 244 videos, 2,012 photos, and 5 plain text posts. Plain text was also the top-performing content type for the brand.
Victoria’s Secret posts an average of 3 posts a day and the timings that work best are between 11 pm to 12 am. While Victoria’s Secret posts the most on Fridays, they receive the most engagement on Sundays.
Content Strategy
Visuals do the talking on Victoria’s Secret’s Facebook page. The brand’s content strategy centers around behind-the-scenes photos of fashion shows, product promotions, and new product launches with brief captions that boost their engagement rates. This photo below was Victoria’s Secret’s most engaging post in the analyzed period with over 14K interactions.
The brand’s Facebook strategy is to not bore its fans with mainstream promotional videos but to showcase its models adorned in VS apparel to help create aspirational appeal among its followers.
Victoria’s Secret posts teaser videos of its upcoming fashion shows or product launches that create a frenzy among fans, making the brand’s engagement score soar. The video below has over 9K interactions and 245K views.
A simple glance at the word cloud of the brand and user comments paints a clear picture that the fans adore Victoria Secret!
Facebook’s decrease in popularity doesn’t deter this brand from posting often or having an active presence. The likes and shares the brand receives on Facebook stand as a tall testimony to reaping the benefits of a well-crafted content strategy.
Victoria’s Secret has 11.2 million followers on Twitter. During the analyzed period the brand registered a loss of 300K followers and had a negative fan growth of 2.67%.
From the chart below, you can see two visible dips in followers count in July and November of 2018. While there aren’t any definitive reasons for the dip in follower growth in July 2018, we found a possible reason behind the dip in followers in November.
In November 2018, Victoria’s Secret hosted their annual fashion show in New York during which they screened an interview of their chief marketing officer, Ed Razek, with Vogue magazine. During the interview, Ed Razek passed comments on the brand’s casting and having transgender and plus-size models on the show. His comments hurt the sentiment of notable LGBTQ and plus-size models and social users alike, leading to Victoria’s Secret facing heavy backlash on social media and other channels for this stint at their annual spectacle show.
Customer Service
Their Twitter strategy centers around conversing with their customers and proactively responding to their queries and concerns. On average, Victoria’s Secret tweets 24 times per day; 88% of their tweets are replies.
Victoria’s Secret responded to 12,915 tweets against a total of 33,471 mentions, keeping their response rate at 38.6%. On average, Victoria’s Secret replies in 4-5 hours, most frequently between 4 pm and 11 pm. Customer tweets are mainly regarding delayed deliveries, product damages or misplacements, and bad in-store customer service. The brand handles these queries by either requesting the customers to direct message (DM) them or apologizing to them for any difficulties they are facing.
Content strategy
In terms of content, product launches, new arrivals, and information on flash sales work best for the brand.
Now’s the time to shop…free shipping on purchases of $50+!https://t.co/xjd7UxabMS pic.twitter.com/yIO263h3np
— Victoria’s Secret (@VictoriasSecret) September 17, 2019
From time to time the brand also indulges in fun banter with its followers like this one:
99% humidity. What’s your hair strategy?
— Victoria’s Secret (@VictoriasSecret) July 24, 2019
Mentions
Victoria’s Secret gets plenty of @mentions from top celebrity influencers and fashion magazines and these tweets always win them a ton of engagement. Kendall Jenner and Steve Harvey are among the many influencers who associate with Victoria’s Secret.
.@kendalljenner is READY for more! #VSFashionShow pic.twitter.com/axwctmUqVV
— Victoria’s Secret (@VictoriasSecret) December 3, 2018
YouTube
Victoria’s Secret has over 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube and added 369K new subscribers during the analyzed period. The brand added 93 new uploads, most of which featured teaser videos of their upcoming Fashion events and video catalogs introducing their new collection.
Takeaway from Victoria’s Secret’s Social Media Success
1. Posting consistency
Having a consistent posting schedule will help you track your performance and also give your audience a chance to get used to your style and tone of voice. Victoria’s Secret manages to remain consistent in its frequency of posting on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter by posting at least once every day.
2. Customer relationship
Engaging with your audience and embracing all kinds of feedback will create a sense of belonging with your community. Your audience will appreciate it when their complaints are heard and responded to by you. Victoria’s Secret manages to do just that by actively responding to their customer queries across all social media networks.
3. Content strategy
Quality of content matters more than quantity, but at the same time quantity cannot be ignored. If you’ve noticed Victoria’s Secret maintains a consistent content strategy across all social media networks. The brand’s visual elements follow a synchronized pattern and follow a consistent theme of hues, angles, looks, and even captions on its Instagram feed.
Having a well crafted social media strategy helps you to grow and remain viable in today’s business landscape and Victoria’s Secret is a testimony to that fact. If you are looking for insights on how to better your social media performance, check out Unmetric Analyze.
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