According to a panel of marketing executives at South by Southwest Interactive, Youtube and Instagram are the go-to platforms for super luxury retailers who want to engage with their target audience.

Gregory Pouy, CEO of New York based LaMercatique said, “The coolest tools for millennials is Youtube.

” He said, “I think YouTube is way more important because of SEO and how people search for information.”

Rocco Forino founder of AlphaBrand said, “Mr. Pouy is correct on that point, because YouTube (owned by Google) is such a fundamental part of how users search as well as its power to link build back to the luxury brands website and other blogs in the link chain, whereas platforms like Snapchat are isolated from link building on the the internet.”

Virtual Reality like Oculus is another big technology that luxury brands will need to consider for their digital marketing budgets.  VR can digitally transport users to a brand’s store or event for example and will be a huge branding component in the next five years.

Thomas Serrano, founder and president of Havas Luxe, added that the stories luxury brands often want to tell on Snapchat are tough to convey in videos that are only seconds long.

“Right now, most brands are engaging with Snapchat, and most of the luxury brands are not,” he said “[Luxury] brands are like ‘What can I do in eight seconds? My story and my brand is much more complex than that.'”

“Today Instagram is more important than magazines,” Pouy said.  “More catwalks are made for Instagram because when the designer thinks about a product, they are going to think , ‘Oh this [will] look good on Instagram.’

“Rocco Forino said, “Instagram is another great platform for luxury brands to connect with their audiences because the platform is super organized, not cluttered and evolves over time…users can keep scrolling deep into the brand’s posts almost like the days of flipping through magazines and folding back pages and marking items that sparked a peak of interest.

“On Instagram if you like a photo of a design or shoes you can always screen shot it and create a photo library of your favorite branded items you eventually want to buy.”

Essentially luxury brands are going to have to determine which platform best cuts through the noise and delivers the biggest bang for their bucks when it comes to customer engagement, brand loyalty and most importantly being able to convert followers into customers.