I always enjoy reading Apparel Insiders, the online magazine about the contemporary fashion industry founded by former associate publisher of both Sportswear International and Women’s Wear Daily Gus Floris. As such, I was thrilled to contribute an article for their September Issue. I chose to focus on what I find to be common, recurring mistakes made by fashion brands in the social space.
“We could argue until Betsey Johnson retires (never!) about which department should “own” social media — marketing, PR, branding, customer service? (Short answer: like your BFF’s closet, social media was made for sharing). In fashion, however, some of the greatest social media success stories occur when PR is at the helm. A quick glance through Lucky Magazine’s relatively exhaustive list of fashion brands on Twitter shows that in addition to social media darlings DKNY and Oscar PR Girl, Tibi, Elizabeth & James, and Stuart Weitzman all promote a decidedly PR-centric approach to social media. And why not? In-house fashion PR reps are connected to the day-to-day of office goings-on. In the know about everything from upcoming press placements to celebrity dressing, the fashion PR perspective can effectively extend the brand personality into social by providing “behind-the-scenes” content and, by engaging with fans and followers, build long-term rapport and loyalty between brand and consumer.
Yet, for many fashion publicists, their professional background is more pitching media than PPC, more credit checks than custom application development. As a result, the ins and outs of platforms like Facebook and Twitter are often misunderstood and misused. Here are five ways fashion brands are getting it wrong when it comes to social media strategy:”
Read the rest of this article on Apparel Insiders
2 Comments
Social Media Bandwagon-ing is happening fast & furiously in the fashion realm in the way you list here.
I’m already dreading all the tweets from Fashion Week and it’s barely started.
“blurry picture of celebrity”
“I just got this freebie from @ stylebrand!”
“@ big fashion house @ famous designer LOVED the show!!! xoxoxo”
boring.
Way to call out some issues, Crosby!
p.s. You can install google analytics into your twitter theme via html.
-s
Interesting article, since I never come across pitfalls as much as I do about articles touting or mandating the use of social media in fashion. I think its quite relevant to 2011 in particular, as expressed
in my article on fashion weeks’ use of social media.
http://sssourabh.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/social-medias-affair-with-fashion-in-real-time/
One Trackback
[...] fashion industry. December marks her fifth birthday! My favorite post from 2011 would have to be “5 Things about Social Media that PR Often gets Wrong,” that I wrote for Apparel Insiders. It was a great way to get some pet peeves off my [...]