Customer Experience

By Nick Johnson - August 13th, 2013

Fashionistas love social, engagement now understood by brands and how Instagram video is a key brand enhancer.

Fashionistas love social media

Fashion and social media have a clear synergy – just look at the content that is posted on Pinterest each day. Fashion brands however, now have empirical research that clearly indicates that the women’s apparel sector is now being driven by social media content.

A survey of 1,000 women aged 18 and over in the US by NetBase concluded: Both fashionistas and social shoppers are more likely than other women to have profiles on social networks other than Facebook. Although Facebook is the 800-pound gorilla in terms of social profiles, fashionistas are slightly more likely to look to fashion blogs and message boards when they want inspiration. Facebook inspires fashion decisions in at least one product category for 72% of social shoppers and 56% of fashionistas.

Twitter is not a top five influencer on fashion decisions, even though most fashionistas and social shoppers have profiles. Approximately one-half of fashionistas and social shoppers look to Pinterest for inspiration, demonstrating the promise of visual marketing, and similarly, Instagram inspires decisions in at least one fashion category for 42% of social networking women in the 18-29 age group.

What is interesting about this research is that it clearly shows that when it comes to brand awareness, the big players in the social media space are not necessarily where marketing should spend their money. The landscape here is more complex. It’s important to also indentify which other channels your customers are using. Certainly support them across the big three social media networks, but don’t forget the smaller networks as well. They could be your brand’s ticket into increased brand advocacy and improved conversion.

Better spelling improves brand loyalty!

A new infographic from Disruptive Communications will make for interesting reading if you feel the content across your business’ social media networks is up to scratch. It appears that good old spelling and grammar is the top reasons consumers can be turned off by a brand’s social media content. And content that is too ‘salesy’ is also still a major turn off.

It can be easy in an age where video content and impressive motion graphics tend to grab the attention of passing customers; but brands must also ensure the basics are right as well to make sure their image isn’t tarnished by shoddily created content.

ROI is not so important

In the early days of social media corporations wanted to see how these networks could be directly related to ROI. There was little appetite or understanding of what other intangible assets social media could bring to a brand. New research seems to show that the view taken by corporations about their social media usage – and what it delivers to their businesses – has shifted.

Where bang for your buck was all encompassing, today brands have realised that this is too simplistic and that social media is a more complex channel. More importantly, it seems that brands have realised that engagement is key with ROI following later.

15 seconds of fame

The changes that Instagram recently made to how video is created has instantly made an impact on some brands. The ability to upload pre-created video to the network is somewhat of a bold move by Instagram, but one that has clear advantages for every brand.

Even though the video snippets are limited to 15 seconds, this hasn’t stopped some brands from creating instantly emotive video content that speaks volumes about their brand values. Rachel Tipograph, director of global digital and social media for Gap, told Mashable: “Creating compelling video is a skill, often requires editing and sound mixing, and the import feature will change the game regarding the types of creative all users publish going forward. Brands can now be more planful by producing Instagram video content designed for the network, but also in service of business needs."

The addition of short video content on Instagram is a masterstroke by the network, as brands can include video in their existing photo feeds. This means less time to build a following and more flexibility with the content they include in any given campaign.

Until next time….

The Useful Social Media team.