Fashion Starts to Get On Top
Posted on: March 15, 2010
About a month ago, Zara was the most popular fashion brand on Facebook. You know what that means. Zara is using social media and it is working extremely well for them. According to The Independent article Weekly Facebook fashion index: most popular mass retailers, Zara has over 2 million followers on Facebook and is beating expensive designers such as Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Gucci in number of fans. This is all according to the Stylophane Facebook Fashion Index. Stylophane is an online marketing and design company that has created this page to monitor the growth in the world of social media within fashion brands. The Fashion Index includes Fashion in general, Footwear, Jeans, and Cosmetics. Users can check previous month listings and can see the amount of fans the brands have. The number of fans are in the categories of Platinum (100,000 plus fans), Gold (10,000-100,000 fans), Silver (1,000-10,000 fans), and Bronze (10-1,000 fans). The rankings are updated daily and users can request new brands to be added.
Zara in Barcelona
Stylophane works with search engine marketing, Facebook marketing, e-mail marketing, and web design & e-commerce. It also does product photography as well as offers Sales Analytics Software. It considers itself in having the best user-interface design for the fashion industry, creates profitable web sites, and supports all services needed for your website. You can see how Zara has become so popular on Facebook just by looking at its page. The Wall is consistently referring users back to the website in its statuses and shows the new designs in photos on a monthly basis. Not only can users comment on these photos and statuses, but Facebook provides a “Like” button where users can tell Zara that they like what they see. The page even has promotional videos for Zara’s all over the world and of course users can comment on them too. At last, the page has an event section where there is a list of opening parties. Notably, Zara’s Facebook page is completely different from its website and neither contains aspects of one another.
The Next Web‘s article Style.com Launches Fashion Feed- Fashion News Just Got Real-Time and Social shares that Style.com has created Fashion Feed to bring up to the minute news on designers, models, celebrities, and labels moving the world of fashion. The page is divided into Most Buzzed About, Latest, News, Beauty News, and Street Style. These are lists of blogs that include thumbnails of pictures that can be read right on the page and staying within the Fashion Feed navigation. Users can search for more intimate details about specific models, designers, labels, and celebrities that are not included in the blogs. The Fashion Feed is updated several times a day and posts tweets on the very same page.
First the fashion industry fears social media and now brands are fighting to be Number 1- how ironic.
Perhaps the fashion industry is catching on with the use of social media and this time it’s Burberry. With its new artofthetrench.com website, Burberry lets anybody star in its campaign. Just take a picture of yourself in a Burberry trench and submit it on the website for community judgment states The Times article Burberry’s artofthetrench.com checks out street-style fashion. This provides free advertising for Burberry as well as an ego boost for the people uploading the pictures. It even promotes a new form of brand loyalty. Consumers can see how regular people wear these trenches in different combinations as opposed to looking at unrealistic models in distinct ways of wearing the trench. Burberry has the largest amount of Facebook followers of any fashion brand and has joined the FTSE which is an index of the UK’s 100 most highly capitalized companies on the London Stock Exchange.
Burberry's artofthetrench.com
Burberry is setting the example for luxury brands and has moved 25% of its advertising budget to online media. It jumped on the social media bandwagon after experiencing an 8% sales decline in 2009 to 138 billion pounds. Seeing this, other big brands have started using the internet to promote their products instead of relying on their boutiques. In this way, the brand brings the product to the consumer instead of waiting for the consumer to come to them. Prada and Bulgari are examples of designers recently creating online stores. The relocation to the internet is being directed by photographer Nick Knight, who is a favorite of fashion magazines. At the end of the article the writer provides five examples of sites that also use images from the street like Burberry to inspire consumers.
My favorite of these sites is The Sartorialist because not only does it share pictures of everyday people on the street, it also shares where these people do their every day errands such as the dry cleaner, the tailor, the hair salon, and shoe repair. The people in the photos are in natural poses in clothes they normally wear and most are not even posing for the camera. The photographer’s images are from a few of the fashion capitals of Milan, Florence, New York, and Paris. Guests can comment on each image and can see where The Sartorialist has been featured. It can be seen anywhere from GQ and Vogue to Ready Made and Metro. What makes The Sartorialist different is that it is in blog format, instead of just a website of pictures. It is not a photo album but an ongoing story of spontaneous pictures from the street.
One leader of the fashion industry can start a social media revolution simply by taking a few random pictures outside.
Luxury brands may be consistently fashion forward but their marketing ways are not so up to date. They are used to buying ad space in magazines where they control what is seen by the world. Dana Gers in Forbes.com article Social Climbing: Luxury Fashion Brands Must Embrace Social Media mentions that 96% of luxury brand customers are part of Generation Y and are using social media. These luxury brands strive for passion in their designs and social media does just that. This passion is exhibited through the conversations between the designer and the consumer. Without this, brands risk letting the consumer create a passionate presence online on their own. The brands must be the ones to initiate the conversation.
Gers goes on to provide luxury brands a few tips on how to use social media properly. The first tip is to find the right brand “voice” which means finding the most personal way to communicate to customers. When using Facebook and Twitter, communication should be less formal and transparent to show users who you truly are and that you are on the same level. The second tip is to commit to consistent communication. Figure out how often the brand can communicate and stick to it. This shows users that the brand is active and stays connected with its consumers. The third tip is to make it easy for customers to find your brand on social media. It is crucial to have “Follow us on Facebook/Twitter/Myspace” links on your website. Fans should be able to update their own status with news of a recent purchase on your website to share with the world what they just bought. The fourth tip is to expect a conversation and therefore criticism. Feedback will always be either positive or negative. Fifth, is to create original content for the social media outreach. The content found on your website should be different from the content on your Facebook page. And finally, use the 80/20 rule which means devote 80% of your content to inform, inspire, amuse, and connect with your fans and 20% of content to product-driven messages.
StyleHop is the final site of the “Six Social Sites” and provides fashion forecasting to capture value currently lost in markdowns.
With its MarginFeeder, merchants can see which styles customers prefer and which ones they do not. They can also get a feel of exactly what the customers will buy–something traditional research cannot do. This MarginFeeder is used by a fashion panel that creates predictive consumer analytics in a quick and cost-effective way. Your brand can come up with a study and see the results 3 days later. StyleHop even has a blog that talks about social media not just in fashion but other famous organizations that also use social media.
With that said luxury brands need social media to maintain their status and to predict the future of fashion.
As I keep mentioning, the fashion industry is slowly merging into social media. They see the many benefits but are not sure how to represent the emotions of styles from fabric to a page online. They are also afraid of losing their luxurious appeal as well as giving the customers too much power. One brand decided to finally be the first to allow users to have a say. In an article on SmartBrief, Social Media Goes Fashion- JUSTPROUD Launches First Community Driven Fashion Brand, Business Wire writes that JUSTPROUD was the first to join the social media community in 2008. Members can contribute their opinions, knowledge, and talent through design, modeling and photography as well as sell their clothes and accessories. Now, ordinary people can use this community to become well-known instead of struggling to reach the level of the famous designer brands. The best part is that these ordinary people can found a fashion community for free and invite their friends to create a network. Anybody can upload their designs as well as comment on others. The brand’s three values are transparency, respect, and creativity- aspects that are crucial to a fashion community.
JUSTPROUD invites all opinions about the site, from fashion tips, people who sell things well, and general suggestions on improving the site. The brand emphasizes that members are both the user and the producer. Members not only share their work but they also create a profile in which they can tell the community about themselves and show their portfolios. The production of their work depends on the number of votes of the members. Only members can buy from the stores and the brand creates widgets to promote sales in their communities. The home page automatically plays a video for the users to see the different areas of the site without having to necessarily read the “About” page. The site is available in languages all over the world and enables a discussion page where members can share their thoughts for specific topics. The designers, models, and photographers can include a small description of their motivation with their works.
Sense of Fashion, number four on the list of “Six Social Sites”, is an indie fashion online home for independent fashion designers, trendsetters, fans, and shoppers. Clients are live and have access to transparent communication with buyers. Sense of Fashion recognizes the shared need of indie designers and fashion fans and shoppers to reach each other, to gain access to a large selection of unique fashion items from all over the world, and to be exposed to a diversity of consumers from all over the world. Designers and Boutiques can sell their products, upcoming designers can create an online portfolio, fashionistas can show their style, and bloggers can promote their blogs. Users can read the Sense of Fashion blog, participate in polls on favorites, and search for people, events, cliques, etc.
Just be proud to use social media for your sense of fashion.
While the fashion industry is still wetting its feet into social media, it remains hesitant to take the plunge into the water. On SmartBrief’s Blog, blogger Jesse Stanchak talks about “Why fashion is behind the social curve”. He mentions that the panelists in “Fashion Goes Social” during Social Media week brought up several reasons why the industry is behind. First, they are advertising their styles during the wrong seasons. This causes a disconnection between the brands, retailers, and consumers. Second, the industry leaders are not setting an example for the rest. Panelists said that Vogue, the fashion industry’s head honcho, has all the resources to join social media but has not come up with any plans to go beyond magazine publishing. Third, many designer labels want to keep their luxurious appeal. In other words, letting a social network in on their plans takes away from their exclusivity.
The next steps for the fashion industry include a radical restructure, the rise of the blogger class, and a chance for brands to establish a unique voice. To them, a radical restructure would be to coordinate production schedules with seasons. This would please the customers and encourage dialogue between them. The rise of the blogger class means that the bloggers have turned into the middle man between runway fashion and everyday clothing. A blog allows instant access to the consumer, which a regular print magazine cannot do. Brands can establish a unique voice by giving readers a behind the scenes look at how they produce their styles. With that, the customer would feel included and the brand is transparent. Combining social media with the fashion industry will create more traffic towards these brands, which will motivate them to keep coming back for updates. Using these connections will get more word out about each brand and based on customer’s comments, brands are aware of the customer’s needs.
StyleCaster is number three on the list of “Six Social Sites”.
It describes itself as social, personalized, influential, and a place to shop. Here, users can connect with each other, explore styles, share their own styles, and receive recommendations from fellow users and experts everywhere. While a user searches for a look, StyleCaster learns her likes and dislikes and delivers a personalized look based on that. It is influential with a mix of user content, original reporting, and old and new industry experts. After learning the user’s interests, she can shop based on her personalized interests, ask friends for their opinions, and feel inspired by brands.
Come on fashion industry; don’t be afraid to make a splash.
2009 was quite a year for the fashion industry. Trends came and went, models walked the walk, and designers kept designing. Then BOOM!!! A few brands began using communities as a way to get more word out about their designs. Other brands were afraid of this online revolution, not knowing how to communicate the emotions of their designs to everyone on the web. They started by keeping it simple; adding themselves to Facebook and Twitter. After receiving so much feedback, brands became aware of the power of communication and realized they could move mountains with it. Here is where social media began to change the fashion industry for the better.
In The Social Media Guide, the article Mashable “5 Ways Social Media Changed Fashion” talks about how much fashion has transformed in the last year. Most brands today are comfortable in communities, have created niche communities, have embraced mobile apps, have experienced a rise of style bloggers, and have become 100% dependent on user-generated content. It is interesting that this industry was probably the last to jump on the social media bandwagon and now they cannot live without it. However, brands are still figuring out how to control brand perception as well as how to establish metrics to measure marketing value.
Us Trendy, number two on the “Six Social Sites”, describes itself as a fashion community working to noticing designers and entrusting consumers.
It is the consumers who have given life to this site. The site is divided into Designers and Fans. The designers create for the fans and the fans participate by voting for their creations. Both can shop for winning designs. Users can advertise as well as read the Us Trendy blog. There is even a page called UsAwareness which allows users to submit and/or vote for causes that Us Trendy will give back to in their community. Not only does it have fashion design, it also has a section with art portfolios. Once again users and submit and/or vote for art work. Another crucial page on this website is the feedback page. It allows users to send comments to the Us Trendy team. To get a feel for how the designers became so well-known, the Behind the Seams page shares the stories of each designer. Us Trendy truly uses social media to the fullest.
At this point, the fashion industry relies on these communication tools to influence customers online and to rekindle brand passion and customer commitment.
Fashion Gets Social 
The Fashion Industry Begins to Discover Social Media
Posted by: Isabella Fuentes on: February 10, 2010
Through the years, the fashion industry has used an infinite amount of ways to advertise from TV commercials and pop ups on the internet to billboards and magazine spreads. While many fashion companies asked for feedback on their print and online articles, they would leave the publishing of those articles and the designs of the clothing for the professionals. The readers did not have a say about what topics to read about or what designers were displayed. Essentially, these professionals were attempting to read our minds. Finally, with the new Web 2.0 and the new desire to stay connected to people, as well as declining ad sales, a few members of the fashion industry have decided it is time for the audience to have a say.
AdvertisingAge, an online source for marketing and media news, issued an article titled “Six Social Sites Every Fashion Marketer Should Know” which talks about how the fashion industry must use social media to stay relevant. Published in September 2009, it states that after a research analyst created a wiki of the top 500 companies with active media social strategies, only one fashion designer was listed and later on its third list of the top 500 companies, fashion designers still only represented 1% of the campaigns listed. The article goes on to list the six best examples of social media used on fashion websites. With the help of the comments about the article, I found many more websites that were also excellent examples of social media in the fashion industry.
Since that article was published, using social media in the fashion industry has definitely evolved. The websites listed in the article highly depend on their users and have several modes of communication such as video, blogs, photos, feedback comments, and create your own designs. Number one listed in the “Six Social Sites” is Shopflick. Shopflick allows users to discover new designers, watch videos, share work and opinions, and shop. Designers can share who they are and their inspirations with short videos and by putting their designs up for sale, including photos of those designs. A user can also search for a designer by Most Popular, All Stores, or Top 9 of ’09. An important aspect the site has is the FAQ section. Here, it explains what Shopflick is and how to use each of its different features. This FAQ section is part of the Learning Center which contains help with troubleshooting, resources for finding filmmakers, and where in the press Shopflick has been.
Needless to say, the fashion industry will continue to survive on more than just glossy prints.