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a reputation to protect. The upside of the transparency trait is that for luxury
brands, it is easy to identify the brands and products that consumers have an
affinity for or the brands, products or even adverts that the public detest. And
the downside is that if it happens to be your brand or product that is the scape-
goat, then the world will find out at the same time as you do, if not before.
Independence
Online social forums are often the products of individuals or groups with
varying motivations that are in most cases linked to a specific area of inter-
est or relevance. These social media founders and moderators are often inde-
pendent of corporate influence and manipulations. Most of their credibility
is derived from the public's perception of their impartiality in presenting
the contents and their detachment from the corporate world. This is the core
source of their attraction. Let's take Stephanie Tara Klein, the blogger behind
Greek Tragedy, as an example. Although she has been blogging about her
life as a New York social girl with the occasional dropping of brand names
and product tips, her audience expects that when she mentions brands in her
blog posts, it should be in reference to her personal viewpoints or linked to
her social lifestyle and not because a brand is behind it.
In the case of luxury-themed social forums, the importance of independence
is even higher because luxury consumers are highly sensitive to the idea of
luxury brands “bribing” social networks to portray them positively. This is the
reason that several blogs and social networks do not hesitate to discuss luxury
brands who try to influence the moderators directly or indirectly. In most cases,
it is the moderators themselves who go online and post comments along the
lines of “So I got a call from brand X and can you believe that they offered me
their new bag in exchange for writing a glowing piece about them?” And the
discussion that would normally follow will be the inevitable bashing.
Passion
In general, when people engage in discussion with friends, family, colleagues
or anyone that happens to be present, it is often about the things that interest
them. Online dialogues on social forums are no different. In fact, the level
of interest for subjects expressed on the social web is even more elevated as
these discussions take place in forums that often comprise thousands of peo-
ple who hardly know each other in real life but are brought together by their
common interest and passion for a specific issue. In most cases, it is also
passion that drives the moderators of the online social forums to create the
networks in the first place and to make them active. As the saying goes, “No
one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door. The purpose of light is
to create more light, to open people's eyes…” It's therefore no surprise that
the levels of activity on some blogs and social forums are so high that the
