Fashion is a highly competitive industry and today’s consumers are smart. In order to see overall increased reach and sustained growth, you need to stand out from the crowd. The best way to do this is through social media.
As a fashion brand, having a social media presence is no longer optional. In fact, a strong social media portfolio is integral to building and maintaining a valuable brand identity and driving sales. Between fashion apps and social marketing, the global online fashion industry is predicted to grow to $870 million by 2023.
Crazy right? Not to mention that nearly 75% of consumers rely on social media to influence their purchases. With this kind of valuable data out there, it’s imperative that as a fashion brand, you have a robust social media strategy and marketing plan that attracts, grows, and converts an audience.
From utilizing Pinterest to finding the right Instagram strategy, this article covers everything you need to know about social media marketing for fashion brands.
In this article we will cover:
- Why Fashion Brands Need Social Media
- How To Create Quality Social Media Content
- Best Social Media For Fashion Brands
- Instagram For Fashion Companies
- Social Media Agency For Fashion Brands
Let’s get to it!
Why Fashion Brands Need Social Media
Fashion is a highly competitive industry and today’s consumers are smart. In order to see overall increased reach and sustained growth, you need to stand out from the crowd. The best way to do this is through social media.
The fashion industry lends itself so well to social media. As a heavily visual industry that relies on cultural movements and aspirational lifestyles, it’s an incredibly effective way for consumers to find products within a specific social context.
Crafting a strategic social media plan is also integral for building brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, and garnering online support. Let’s examine these closer.
Building Brand Awareness: Are you a new fashion brand? Are you trying to grow your following? Are you an established company? Regardless of your business status, it’s important that all fashion brands establish their unique identity via social media and consistently build brand loyalty.
Even if customers haven’t bought from you yet or are considering buying something from your company, you want to showcase the benefits of your products and the lifestyle that accompanies them. You want to create a fundamental awareness so that when your ideal customer is ready to make a purchase, you’re top of mind.
Drive Web Traffic: As one of the most effective digital marketing channels, social media is key to driving traffic towards your website or email newsletters. More traditional methods, like content marketing and SEO strategy can absolutely work but can often take upwards of six months to see the benefits. On the other hand, both organic and paid social media posts can drive instant traffic.
Get Influencer Support: Influencer marketing is key to both building brand awareness and garnering authenticity online. Another benefit to using social media is the ability to utilize user-generated content. Whether you want to venture into the world of influencer marketing or simply encourage customers to use a hashtag, you can use the images and videos of others on your website, social media, emails, and more. Not only does this practice further your reach, but creates a better sense of relatability by using real customers.
How To Create Quality Social Media Content
Highly visual mediums, like social media platforms, are the perfect avenue to convey your aesthetic and inspire potential customers by marketing your brand. This doesn’t just mean posting a photo to instagram, anyone can do that. Instead, fashion social media marketing should be visually appealing, informative, and valuable.
The first thing to nail down is the purpose of your social media presence, do you want to use it as a portfolio for your luxury designs? Educate them on your product lines? Once you understand the ‘why’ behind it, you can better implement a social media strategy which will in turn, impact the kind of content you create.
Check out How To Create Quality Content For Instagram to gain more insight.
Between fashion apps and social marketing, the global online fashion industry is predicted to grow to $870 million by 2023.Quote:
The Experts
Best Social Media For Fashion Brands
When it comes to social media strategy, having a presence on all social platforms is key. However, it’s often better to focus on one or two primary channels and produce high quality content for that specific channel rather than to spread yourself thin and ultimately do a subpar job across the board.
Ideally, the platforms you choose to focus on is where your target audience spends most of their time online. It’s therefore imperative that before you begin posting on social media, you identify your target audience and outline your social media goals.
For example, you might want to increase your social media presence to drive sales, find new leads, establish an audience, or build trust. Once you understand the motivation and strategy behind your social media you can better meet your goals.
It’s also incredibly important to research specific channel demographics in order to identify which platforms you should focus on and how to tailor content to that audience. The below information is a great starting point:
- Facebook: Age 25-34/56% male. Reaches almost 80% of digital users.
- Instagram: Age 25-34/57% female. Great for images, videos, and before and after content.
- Twitter: Age 30-49/68% male. Great for trending topics and industry news.
- Pinterest: Age 30-49/78% female. Great for sharing aspirational, visual content, and design trends.
- LinkedIn: Age 46-55/51% male. Professional way to connect with industry contacts.
Video Content
Whether you’re creating Reels, TikToks, or for Youtube, video-based content can help you achieve higher organic rankings. The benefit to videos is that they can work well through both traditional search engines like Google, but also through video search engines like YouTube.
Videos are also quickly becoming the go-to medium for fashion content. Many social media platforms, especially Instagram, are prioritizing video content via Reels, IGTV, and Instagram stories. The benefit to this, as an example, is that now the content you create for YouTube can be repurposed for social media, digital ads, and for your website. A brand’s visual identity is integral to a brand’s success and exceptional video content will set you apart from competitors.
Having inspiring visuals with a consistent tone creates a seamless experience for your customers that exudes a subconscious feeling of connection and assurance. Every video, whatever length, should give the viewer a sense of what your fashion brand is all about and inspire them to live within the visual world you’ve created.
Not sure how to get started creating videos? Check out the Top Video Marketing Tools For Social Media.
Facebook Fashion Groups
Despite the jokes from Gen-Z that Facebook is dead, it remains the most popular social media platform in the world with almost 2.8 billion users every month. Facebook is well worth incorporating into your social media strategy for a multitude of reasons.
First is the ability to set up an e-commerce platform. Facebook for Businesses allows you to set up a shop page in order to both reach out to clients and drive further traffic to your services. It also makes it super easy for others to purchase your fashion products.
Second, there is a huge untapped market in private Facebook groups. These allow you to both create and join groups that are built on nurturing a community and can help you drive organic traffic to your page.
Lastly, Facebook allows you to post a variety of content, from photos and videos to article links while also giving you the ability to repost content from other user’s. In this way, it’s one of the most well rounded platforms with a plethora of options for content.
Facebook Ads For Fashion Brands
While Facebook is a great tool for organic social media reach and growth, it’s also even better for paid advertising. This means repurposing your most popular content or creating an entirely new post/video campaign.
Essentially you can target your intended audience by breaking down ads based on gender, geographic location, interests, and so much more. Using Facebook ads for your fashion company makes it much easier to extend your reach and drive traffic to either your website or business Facebook page.
Instagram For Fashion Companies
With an active global audience of over 500 million daily users, Instagram is a game changer for the fashion industry. While initially an image-only based site, Instagram has shifted over the years to incorporate in-app shopping, videos, stories, and long-form video content (IGTV).
This means taking a multimedia approach to social media strategy is much more streamlined. Each subsection of Instagram serves a unique purpose and should therefore, be approached differently.
In-feed posts are great for showcasing your excellent portfolio through glossy, high-quality images. Stories (which disappear after 24 hours) are great for news, reposts, sharing inspo content and engaging with your audience. Reels are 30-second videos that are ideal for building an audience. They are a great vehicle for style guides, outfit inspo, and more.
The best approach to building a loyal Instagram following is to experiment with all the different types of content available and see which garners the highest reach. Then you can hone in on what your audience responds to the most.
Ecommerce merchants can also use Instagram’s shopping feature, allowing users to purchase items without leaving the app.
Pinterest For Fashion Brands
Next to Instagram, Pinterest is arguably the second most important social media platform for fashion brands. Unlike Facebook or Instagram, Pinterest isn’t focused on likes or views but rather, offers a digital mood board that allows users to upload, save, and pin design inspirations. Think about it as less of a social media app and more of a search engine
Naturally, Pinterest is a great way to circulate your designs.
People flock to Pinterest for inspiration, but also, for assistance. You can easily repurpose Instagram reels or content for Pinterest in the form of photo guides, step-by-step help, infographics, and ‘how-to’ videos.
Pinterest also functions in a similar manner to a traditional search engine like Google, meaning that you’ll need to do adequate keyword research and create multiple pins surrounding a single keyword to maximize your SEO.
All your pins have the option to link to another site. You can drive traffic to your instagram page, your website, or a specific blog post, so it’s worth considering buying ad space as part of your social media content strategy.
Social Media Agency for Fashion Brands
Each of these different marketing strategies require a combination of expert know-how and a little bit of wizardry. Depending on your brand, not every social media channel may be the right fit for your and all your content will need to be tailored to your specific audience and products. That’s why it’s helpful to find a knowledgeable partner to take marketing your luxury brand off your to-do list.
Hiring a professional social media fashion agency for fashion brands is a smart way to create a plan of action that suits your goals, desires, and most importantly, your budget. Plus, their expert know-how and software will likely produce ideas you never even thought of.
Ready for someone to tackle all your fashion content marketing needs? We’re happy to take it from here. Contact ThoughtLab today for a free consultation and let’s tell your story the right way, together.
