For better or for worse, social media has had an impact on a vast amount of global industries. When it comes to the fashion industry the two go hand in hand. In the online world beaming with social interaction and influence, social media is putting the fashion catwalk straight into the palm of our hands and it is changing the way we shop.
The amount of time people spend on social media is constantly increasing. Statistics portal Statista recorded that the average daily time spent on social media from 2012-2017 had risen from 90 minutes to 135 minutes a day. The increase has spurred social media platforms to evolve their tools to attract further audiences. Now fashion brands and organisations are truly understanding the power and benefits of the online social world, particularly in the form of online influencers.
Polly Bartlett, social media influencer and fashion assistant at Women's Health, knows just how beneficial an online influencer can be for a fashion brand/organisation. “Social media is a good way to build and represent a brand. They (the brands) get very focused results from using online influencers.
“Online influencers and fashion bloggers have a highly focused audience that is interested in fashion. If they use a brands item of fashion in their posts, the conversion into their sales is higher compared to just posting an advert on a website.”
In a recently conducted survey, 43% of people said that they stayed up to date with constant fashion trends through social media. 78% of those said Instagram was the social media platform they used most to follow these trends.
Instagram, owned by Facebook, says its under-25 users spend ‘more than 32 minutes on Instagram a day’, while users over 25 spend ‘more than 24 minutes a day’ on the app.
More and more fashion brands are choosing to use online influencers on Instagram as a platform for their marketing strategies. In an article with Adweek, stylist, blogger and fashion influencer Catherine Clair quoted:
“What bloggers are wearing on Instagram and other social media outlets has created such an impact on the way that consumers shop that retailers have reached out to them for content collaborations.”
Polly is an ambassador for fashion brand New Look and feels online influencers are a more authentic approach to advertising. “It feels a bit more real. People follow others on Instagram because they like what they do and it seems more realistic.
"Influencers and their following on Instagram are quite focused on whatever their subject matter is, so I guess it is advertising in a more genuine way.
Analysing the data above, there are some intriguing statistics drawn from the survey. Online influencers clearly emerge as the go-to for fashion trends and styles compared to celebrities and models. It is interesting to see how more people prefer to shop online than in store, however, when it comes to actually purchasing items, the high street store is triumphant.
There is no surprise that social media leads the way for how people keep up to date with fashion trends, considering early research showed we spend an average up to 150 minutes on social media in any one day.
A new world of online social media interaction
For consumers of the fashion world, social media is delivering a whole new world of interactivity. Consumers are more intrigued by the all-access passes and behind the scene insights of live fashion shows thanks to real-time live streaming services integrated into Instagram, Youtube and Facebook.
Instagram has taken consumer interaction to the next level with the ‘see now, buy now’ consumer model. The social media platform is changing the way the consumer interacts with brands and how they can discover new products within the app.
The consumer can now shop organically from Instagram thanks to its shoppable posts. A shoppable post is made my tagging a product (maximum of five per post) in the same way we tag fellow users in a photo on the application.
When the user taps on the post it displays the product price and a link to a new page within the application that gives the user more information about that product. From there the user can choose to shop the product and Instagram directs the user to the brand’s online store.
Ethan Brennen is an avid social media user and Instagram influencer. Ethan works alongside designer brands shooting their designer gear on his Instagram profile. He thinks social media has diversified the power of fashion to include the voice of the average consumer.
“I feel social media has definitely given the average consumer a voice in fashion. Fashion within social media such as Instagram is a more accessible way for consumers to be exposed to people like them who are involved in fashion.
“On Instagram, you are not following a crowd. You get exposed to influencers who mix their own sense of style with what you like. You see something new and something different that could potentially be the next big thing.”
Like Instagrams shoppable posts, Ethan incorporates links and URLs into his Instagram posts so users can quickly navigate to the designer gear that Ethan is modelling. "It is faster and easier for the consumer to get straight to the product they want. There is no need to waste time searching through pages of fashion brand websites."
The impacts of social media have also changed the way fashion brands are marketing towards the consumer. With social media, marketers now have access to huge bundles of customer data and consumer insights where they can tailor specific adverts towards individual users.
“Fashion is the one that has the highest return on investment (ROI) on social media compared to other traditional forms of marketing industries on social media,” says Helena Walsh, Head of Digital at Palm Pr, an award-winning public relations and social media consultancy in London.
“Social media platforms are gathering lots of information from you such as salary band, shopping habits, pages you like and posts you engage with on Facebook, for example, Fashion Week. Then it's a simple task of selecting the demographics when you go through the advertisement tool,” such as Facebook Pixel, a tool which allows you to measure, optimise and build audiences for your advertising campaign.
Helena is a social media expert with her expertise and main focus on advertising strategies since starting at Palm PR as a social media consultant. Helena’s research includes extensive background information into the relationship between fashion and social media.
“Fashion marketers on social media are taking it one step further by analysing your posts and seeing who engages with it the most. From there, social media platforms let you create custom audiences who have already engaged with your post so they see more from you.”
Alex McCann, a social media expert at Altrincham HQ, believes Facebook is just as much a data company as it is a social network. "In most of the cases, we're completely complicit and give our information away voluntarily.
"Think about the average Facebook user, you'll give away your gender, age, location, interests via likes, check-ins, status updates and so on. so every time we do anything on the platform they're improving their data profile."
Helena notes the key tactics used by advertisers and marketers in the fashion industry. “Influencer outreach programmes are extremely important within the fashion industry. Another key tool for advertisers in the fashion industry is offering offers and codes to those that engaged with those posts depicting Influencers.”
It will be interesting to follow future developments of social media, how it innovates its interactivity, and moves beyond its current capabilities.
