Fashionably SocialCreating digital presence forfashion brands

Introduction The love between Fashion and Digital has now reached maturity. Fashion brands like Burberry, Asos, Kate Spade, Topshop, Berdorf Goodman are creating a strong digital presence across channels: Web, Social, Mobile and creating exclusive digital branded content. Especially in social media fashion brands are setting new benchmarks. At a time when social shopping and social aggregation applications are going from strength to strength, the face of online fashion retail is changing. In this presentation we would like to focus on this hot sector and share our thoughts on creating an efficient digital presence across multiple channels.

Building BlocksTop 8 Tips forcreating digitalpresence for fashionbrands

Tip 1: A website which is socially integrated Consumers are more and more sophisticated with the help of social media. They search for a specific trend, even a specific colour on their mind rather than a specific brand most of the times. They look for value, they look for quality but they mostly look for the cool factor. They share with friends, they buy what their friends share. They follow celebrities, bloggers, pinboards, lists, style guides and magazines. They are active anytime, anywhere. The website of a fashion brand can be the first point to access but with the help of new social tools it is also the last point of purchase. A new generation of fashion website has to be available at every stage on users dynamic journey.

Tip 2: A good search strategy A good search strategy is crucial for reaching consumers covering strategic keywords for: Product category Colour grouping Latest seasonal fashion trend words There are 1 million searches in UK each month for clothing-related terms. ASOS dominate the market when it comes to visibility, while New Look have the best product keyword visibility score. 15/35 advertisers run out of PPC budget before the end of each day. Social sharing can create links for fashion retailers. Social media optimisation is key for increasing rankings in organic search.Source: Epiphany Fashion Report 2012

Tip 3: Ready for mobile Consumers search for products and share about products anytime, anywhere. A fashion retailer website should be responsive to mobile devices. Ideally a specific multi-touch and gesture interface for iPad and Android tablet devices is suggested. Contextual menus, and simplified content are crucial for small screen smart phones.

Tip 4: Differentiate with content Create exclusive online products, competitions and content for extra impact. Viral videos, look books, catwalk streaming are still strong. Celebrity endorsements are also creating extra buzz online. Provide white background, clean product images. So when images of your products shared on other platforms they still look good and attractive. Consumers love to pin images of their favourite clothes or share on Facebook with their friends.

Tip 5: Encourage Sharing Dont limit yourself to Facebook, include Pinterest, Polyvore, Google+ on your product pages. Encourage customers to share their purchase after they complete their transaction. Keep in touch with the actual customers on social platforms, turn them into advocates. Follow up-and-coming social shopping, social curating sites. Integrate with them quickly to have a better visibility in a growing network.

Tip 6: Collaborate Fashion bloggers have their own community, using social search tools, creating their own influence on trends and as a result have a strong impact on shopping decisions. Getting the most influential bloggers in your market onboard for seasonal activities, new product launches, even creating collaborative collections are a good way to reach an interest group. Follow the footsteps of Burberry, Topshop and Aldo.

Tip 7: Dont just create, curate! Curation is the new search for fashion. Especially for female audiences, clothes shopping is no longer based on needs. It is an emotional experience, a way to express oneself. Highlight lifestyle aspects of your products. Use new generation start-up social shopping tools to create better visibility for your product. Provide tools for consumers to show their taste. Like Asoss fashion finder. Alternatively use the tools available online. Like Bergdorf Goodman using Polyvores mini interface on their Facebook page.

Tip 8: Catch the trend quickly As a fashion brand, you are expected to be the trendsetter. If animated gifs are popular again, try to integrate them into your campaign quickly. Dont be a copycat, but also dont miss the voice of the consumer. If they want you to be on Pinterest, be there. Try and test new platforms and continuously evaluate their impact. Move on if it doesnt work for you.

Summary: Keywords for success online Social integration Responsive design Portability Availability Search optimised Friendly Creative Exclusive Trendsetter Participator

Social FashionTop social networks to meetconsumers and fans

As the ultimate social network globally, Facebook presence is almost as important as a website for a fashion brand.Facebook While users spend more and more time on Facebook communicating with friends and networks, brands have so many different opportunities to create strong interactions with them on this platform. From F-Commerce to integration with other social networks like Instagram, social games to creating exclusive applications Facebook is a main destination for fashion brands. Facebook activities now came to a maturity level and brands are looking for different engagement methods rather than daily conversations. The Facebook page of the year in 2012, Bergdorf Goodman is a good example for this new type of engagement. They have integrated social platforms Polyvore and Instagram with specific apps into their Facebook platform.

From announcing new products to providing links to exclusive content, fashion brands found many creative waysTwitter to use Twitter. As well as big fashion houses, high street fashion retailers also have their close followers. It is an instant news spreading and communicating mechanism for any brand. Burberry is creating some benchmark campaigns on Twitter. During 2012 LFW, Burberry shared exclusive Animated GIFS via Twitter (and as images on Instagram) before the models hit the runway, allowing followers to view the collection moments before anyone else. As a result #Burberry trended globally (for the second season in a row with its womenswear show) and Burberry has a combined following of over 860,000 on Twitter, making it the most followed luxury brand on Twitter.

As the 2nd most popular search engine, YouTube is a fantastic platform for fashion brands.YouTube In a visual industry, the value of strong moving imagery is extremely high. In addition to sharing catwalk shows and TV style adverts brands can also use YouTube as a way of showcasing trends and as an influencing mechanism.

Pinterest is probably the most talked about social network these days.Pinterest With high engagement numbers, impressive link generating figures and a heavily female biased userbase it is a very promising platform for fashion brands. Brands like Burberry, Asos, Guess and DKNY already using this platform creatively to connect with their fan base. Pinterest is creating efficient results especially when aiming to create the lifestyle aspect around a brand and connecting with the consumer on emotional levels.

Thousands of fashion bloggers are using the microblogging platform to share their likes with the onlineTumblr community. Tumblr encourages fashion engagement with its brand by sponsoring leading bloggers to visit New York Fashion week for the past 2 years. Especially with easy Instagram integration, this platform became the choice of photo bloggers. Brands like Topshop, McQ by Alexander McQueen are also running their own Tumblr blogs with unique content to this platform.

Mix and Match your outfits, create a style collage and share.Polyvore By allowing consumers to create their own fashionable looking magazine spreads, Polyvore differentiates itself from many other social shopping / social curation platforms. Polyvore allows users to create and share their own collections, which are all linked to actual retailers websites. Users can also search for products based on price and popularity. The most valuable part for fashion retailers is Polyvores open analytics interface. They also provide a newsletter to retailers so they can follow trending items on their collections: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/analytics

Ones to watchNew start-upspromising to changethe lifestyle shoppingexperience

Concept: Pin the things you want to buy. Discover the best products through your community. Follow your favouriteSvpply curators and shops. Pros: Seen as the main competitor to Pinterest. Currently 850,000 products are hand-selected by Svpply community. Users can follow a shop which is currently aggregated from community selections. Cons: Still a relatively small community. Brands are given an option to manage their shops but the functionality is not identified clearly. Users dont have option to filter per brand on the main menu.

Concept: Follow your favourite brands, bloggers and people. Discover the items you might like based on brands and itemsLyst you follow. Lyst also sends a sales alert for the specific items on a users list. Pros: Very dynamic search interface allows user to have an online shop experience. Connected to all major highstreet and luxury brands online shops. Provides a seamless journey for shopping displaying actual sales price and stock levels. Encourages social sharing in other networks including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Cons: Collections from other users dont appear as attractive as other networks such as Polyvore, summary content displayed on search is not enough to reflect the users taste as a result social shopping factor doesnt appear as strong.

Concept: Share the things you love. Decide your portion of the income to go to you or a charity.Mulu.me Pros: You can curate and earn money or your pinboard actually can help for a good cause. It is promising to grow and already got the attention of some famous fashion designers like Elie Tahari, fashion bloggers like Go Fug Yourself and Hollywood stars. Cons: It is a brand new site launched in December 2011. Still a small amount of users, so it will take some time to create real impact for the brands.

More and more players are coming into social shopping market as there is definitely a growth opportunityOthers here. Below is a collection of these sites which we believe are worth following: Weheartit.com Dailylook.com Looklet.com Lookbook.nu Buyosphere.com Discoveredd.com Nuji.com Olioboard.com Getvega.com Styloko.com

Also trendingOther digital concepts currentlyhot for fashion retail

Digital Walls: With Tesco Korea and Glamour on LFW 2012, this new shopping experience is promising for theTrending retail brands. Augmented Reality: Trying a dress at home or without a need to change is a promising idea for fashion retailers. There are already good working examples, the latest by Selfridges in UK. Live Streaming: Luxury fashion brands like Burberry using live streaming mechanics in addition to YouTube to benefit from the power of video sharing. The LFW 2012 several shows were streamed live and also on digital screens in town.

Thank youPlease get in touch if you want to discuss howcan we help to enhance your presence online.Sevil Ozer Cresposevil@mavad.co.uk020 7378 6969Visit our website for more information.www.mavdig.co.uk