Key things marketers must know when it comes to using influencers in their Instagram campaigns.

Influencer marketing on social media channels such as Instagram has become a popular marketing strategy used by brands. This is due to the higher perceived trust that comes with influencers communicating the message rather than using a brands’ own advertising (Foux, 2006);(De Veirman et al, 2017). In addition, a recent study showed that 76% of consumers trust content posted by other consumers more than brand advertising (Olapic, 2016). Nonetheless, several factors must be acknowledged and put into practice to get the most of your campaign, discussed below are the key points to help marketers maximise performance.

 

What to focus on:

Firstly, picking the ‘right’ influencer should be the priority of the campaign, as emphasised by De Veirman et al (2017) selecting a credible and respective influencer can result in the positive image of the influencer being passed onto the brand. In addition, the influencer should share the same vision and values and have a genuine interest in the brand and its products, as this is often noticeable by the effort the influencer puts into the sponsored post most especially if the sponsored content is in form of a video (Hardy, 2016)

Nonetheless, Hamann (2014) helps simplify the process by listing five simple steps brands should follow to guide them to select the right influencer for their campaign, to read more on what these steps are, click here!

Secondly, content! Without content, the post itself carries no purpose to the consumer (Daugherty and Hoffman, 2014). In the world of Instagram creative and authentically pleasing content goes a long way, a recent survey found that photos are the most popular user-generated content and aids engagement (Olapic, 2016). In addition, the photo should share relevant information for the consumer to aid engagement e.g. when endorsing a jacket sharing information on the fabric and feel of the material is perceived to be important to the consumer.

Click here to read more about what Instagram content would best suit your brand

Lastly, marketers should take advantage of hashtags (#) it is advisable for a brand to have a distinct hashtag specific to their products, this makes it easier for users to view other posts associated to the brands’ hashtag, increase their awareness on the brand, as well as increases the chance of gaining new followers (Manikonda et al, 2014).

Below are examples of how Pretty Little Thing use their own hashtags to build engagement and brand awareness.

As illustrated below the hashtag #PrettyLittleThing has nearly 700,000 posts associated with it.

 

 

What the risks are and how to minimise/ avoid them

Firstly, not everyone with 1000+ followers is genuine, the growth of the ‘influencer industry’ has made it extremely prosperous for anyone, with the opportunity of being paid an estimated £180 per sponsored post ‘influencers’ are going as far as buying their followers, likes as well as comments. In turn, making it difficult for brands to distinguish the credible from the fabricated influencers (Zatat,2017).

The extent to which this is critical is emphasised by (De Veirman et al, 2017) who states that perceived image of the influencer is often reflected in the brand. Nonetheless, several tools such as followerwonk and SocialBlade have been introduced to help brands track an influencers engagement activity and enable them to see features such as when they received their followers, thus highlighting anomalies.

To read more about how followerwonk and SocialBlade can be used… click here

Secondly, the authenticity of sponsored content has been questioned by critics, a recent survey found that 30% of users found sponsored content with the hashtags #ad #spon #paid hashtag to be untrustworthy (Bockholt, 2017). Nonetheless, more recently what brands are doing to fade out the negative effect is placing the mandatory sponsored identification to the top of the photo rather than using the hashtags, this is illustrated in the images below:

 

 

Thirdly, hashtags though #’s bring engagement and benefits to the brand, it must be acknowledged that innocent hashtags such as Annie, Deb and Bri are code for anxiety, depression and bipolar on Instagram (Moreno et al, 2016). Thus in order to minimise any press backlash or offending your followers, it is critical that any potential hashtags are thoroughly examined prior.

Below are examples of brands that have been successful in their Instagram marketing, feel free to take some notes:

1) Birchbox, a beauty company teamed up with teamed up with lifestyle blogger Emily Schuman to curate their May box, the product was posted in five Instagram photos.

Likes received: over 18,000

Consumer reach: over 55,000

2) Madewell, clothing brand teamed up with five influencers to promote the anniversary of their signature tote in their #TOTEWELL campaign.

Consumer reach: over a million

Conclusion

Marketers must be aware that despite influncer marketing being very prosperous both in short and long-term, certain factors as discussed throughout must be recognised and implemented into the social media strategy to aid performance. Another key element to note is that Instagram is only an effective channel to campaign on if your target audience is young adults (typically aged 18-29).

 

References 

Bockholt, S. (2017) ‘The Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing’, TheCore, 3rd March 2017 [online] available at < https://www.dma-solutions.com/thecoreblog/the-pros-and-cons-of-influencer-marketing > accessed 26th March  2018

Daugherty, T. and Hoffman, E. (2014) eWOM and the importance of capturing consumer attention within social media. Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol 20, No 1-2, pg 82-102.

De Veirman, M., Cauberghe, V. and Hudders, L. (2017) Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude. International Journal of Advertising, Vol 36, No 5, p 798-828.

Foux, G. (2006) cited in Mangold, W.G. and Faulds, D.J. (2009) Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business horizons, Vol 52, No 4, p 357-365.

Hamann, H. (2014) ‘5 Tips for Finding the Right Social Influencers for Your Brand’, Covince&CovertBlog, 11th December 2014 [online] available at < http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/5-tips-for-finding-the-right-social-influencers-for-your-brand/ > accessed 26th March  2018

Hardy, J. (2016) ‘How Consumers Really Feel About Sponsored Influencer Content’, Acorn, 8th  August 2016 [online] available at < http://www.acorninfluence.com/blog/consumers-really-feel-sponsored-influencer-content/ > accessed 26th March  2018

Manikonda, L., Hu, Y. and Kambhampati, S., Analyzing User Activities (2014) Demographics, Social Network Structure and User-Generated Content on Instagram [online] available at < https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.8099.pdf >accessed 25th March  2018

Moreno, M.A., Ton, A., Selkie, E. and Evans, Y. (2016) Secret Society 123: understanding the language of self-harm on Instagram. Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol 58, No 1, pg 78-84.

Olapic (2016) Global report 2016  [online] available at < http://visualcommerce.olapic.com/rs/358-ZXR-813/images/wp-consumer-trust-survey-global-FINAL.pdf > accessed 26th March  2018

Zatat, N. (2017) “Social media experiment has revealed how simple it is to create a fake Instagram accounts and make money from them”, The Independent, 11th August 2017 [online] available at < http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/social-media-experiment-fake-instagram-accounts-make-money-influencer-star-blogger-mediakix-a7887836.html >accessed 25th March  2018

A straightforward guide on how to excel in your social media campaign

Introduction

The Customer Insight Group (2018) states that a social media campaign is when a company promote their brand on one or more of their social media channels, with the aim of achieving measurable results. Over the years, social media marketing has significantly increased, influenced by research findings. For example  (Foux,2006) highlights that consumers perceive social media marketing to be more authentic compared to traditional marketing techniques. This has led to  78% of businesses investing in their social media teams (Quigley,2018).

 

How to effectively select a channel for your campaign

With numerous social media channels to select from (eg. Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Snapchat, etc) identifying the right platform to promote your brand on can often be difficult. However, research has been undertaken to help simplify the process for marketers by identifying the most effective channels as well as pinpointing the demographics that favour those channels.

As illustrated in Figure 1 below, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube were ranked as the three most popular social media channels in 2017 (DreamGrow,2017). In addition, Hicks (2018) highlights that in order for brands to maximise their social media marketing potential they must be able to cater to their target markets’ marketing preferences, achieved by selecting an effective social media channel to feature the campaign on.

Furthermore, a social media analytics company conducted this research and discovered that marketing campaigns featured on Facebook would be accessible and suitable for all age groups (see Figure 2 below). However, Instagram would be most effective for campaigns that want to target females aged between 18-29 (see Figure 3 below) (Sprout Special, 2016). Furthermore, a recent survey found that the most effective marketing channel for young consumers is Snapchat, the survey concluded that over 83% of 12-17  individuals engaged with the platform regularly and effectively.

Interested to read more into Sprout Special’s research findings on social media demographics?…..click here

Figure 1: Top 15 Most Popular Social Media channels  in 2017

Figure 2: Facebook demographics

Figure 3: Instagram demographics

 

Why selecting an influencer is a crucial factor that can affect the performance of the campaign?

The use of influencers in social media campaigns has increased tremendously over the years, with 84% of marketers finding it an effective method when implanted into their social marketing practices (Olenski, 2017).

The purpose of using an influencer is to remove the initial barrier of ‘doubt’ between consumer and the brand, as a credible influencer would have established a sense of ‘trust’ between themselves and their followers.This is achieved by releasing honest content on product reviews and recommendations. Additionally, de Vries et al (2012) highlights that using an influencer can also increase the acceptance of the brands’ communicated message to the targeted audience. Thus emphasising on why selecting the ‘right’ influence is important

To help simplify the process of selecting the perfect influencer for your brand, Hamann (2014) lists five tips:

1) Relevance- research the blogger, is the content aligned with the brand image?

2) Engagement- does the blogger engage with the followers? i.e. responds to enquires

3) Reach- Does the message grasp an adequate amount of followers?

4) Frequency- How frequently do they blog?

5) Authenticity- is the content compelling and engaging?

Click here to read more on how to select the right influencer 

Benefits of social media campaigns

DeMers (2014) simplifies 3 key benefits that brands can achieve from implementing social media campaigns into their pre-existing marketing strategy:

1) Increased brand awareness- social media channels can be used to increase brand visibility by conversing with your current and potential customers about the company and the products/ services offered.

2) Increased inbound traffic- social media channels allow for brands to interact and acquire with consumers other than ones familiar with your business.

3) A decrease in marketing costs- according to research only dedicating 6 hours a week to your social media platforms is a sufficient amount of generating traffic and engagement.

Examples of companies to take notes from that have succeeded with their social media campaigns:

1) Mr Clean: Super Bowl Ad and Valentine’s campaign- generated over 17 million views on YouTube, and over 11,700 mentions in a minute on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

2) Taco Bell Cinco de Mayo Snapchat Filter: The Snapchat lens was viewed more than 224 million times a day

3) Dead pool-:received over 200 million impressions on Snapchat

Click here to read more about these companies’ marketing campaigns and what led them to success

Risks involved in social media campaigns

1) The authenticity of influencers- The growth of the ‘influencer industry’ has made it a very prosperous industry to be in, this has led to individuals falsely identifying themselves as ‘credible influencer’ through buying their followers. As a result, making it difficult for brands to identify trustworthy influencers (Zatat,2017). The extent to why this is a crucial factor is emphasised by De Veirman et al (2017) as they discuss the image of the influencer (positive or negative) is often passed onto the brand.

2)The backlash of sponsored content- Due to the recent regulations, it is mandatory for influencers to include the following hashtags on sponsored content (#ad, #spon or #paid). However, this has led to 30% of consumers finding posts featured with these hashtags to be ‘inauthentic’ (Bockholt, 2017).

Conclusion

To conclude, it is clear that social media campaigns can be an effective marketing strategy, as the benefits outweigh the risks. However, as discussed marketers’ must remember the success of their campaign heavily relies on identifying the right influencer. This can be easily achieved through thorough research, it might be time-consuming but will save the brand money and reputational damage in the long run. Likewise, understanding your demographics and their marketing preferences will allow for your brand to select the most appropriate channel to campaign on and will save the company money and time.

 

 

Reference

Bockholt, S. (2017) ‘The Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing’, TheCore, 3rd March 2017 [online] available at < https://www.dma-solutions.com/thecoreblog/the-pros-and-cons-of-influencer-marketing > accessed 13th February 2018

DeMers, J.(2014) ‘The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing’, Forbes, 11th August 2014 [online] available at <https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/#7b19d7481f80 > accessed 13th February 2018

De Veirman, M., Cauberghe, V. and Hudders, L. (2017) Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude. International Journal of Advertising, Vol 36, No 5, p 798-828

De Vries, L., Gensler, S. and Leeflang, P.S.  (2012) Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages: An investigation of the effects of social media marketing. Journal of interactive marketing, No 26, Vol 2, pp 83-91

DreamGrow (2017) cited in Kallas, P. (2018) ‘ Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites and Apps’, DreamGrow,11th February 2018 [online] available at < https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-popular-social-networking-sites/> accessed 13th February 2018

Foux, G. (2006) cited in Mangold, W.G. and Faulds, D.J. (2009) Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business horizons, Vol 52, No 4, p 357-365

Hamann, H. (2014) ‘5 Tips for Finding the Right Social Influencers for Your Brand’, Covince&CovertBlog, 11th December 2014 [online] available at < http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/5-tips-for-finding-the-right-social-influencers-for-your-brand/ > accessed 13th February 2018

Hicks, K. (2018) ‘How Understanding Different Social Media Audience Demographics Improves Marketing’, Effective Speed, 6th November  [online] available at < http://www.effectivespend.com/understanding-the-audience-of-each-social-media-platform/ > accessed 12th February 2018

Olenski, S. (2017) ‘The Importance Of Influencer Marketing For B2B Marketers’, Forbes, 1oth August 2017 [online] available at < https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2017/08/10/the-importance-of-influencer-marketing-for-b2b-marketers/#3bd280c14871 > accessed 14th February 2018

Sprout Special (2016) cited in York, A. (2017) ‘ Social Media Demographics to Inform a Better Segmentation Strategy’,          Sprout Special, 6th  March 2017 [online] available at <https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/ > accessed 12th February 2018

The Customer Insight Group (2018) ‘How Do You Define a Social Media Campaign?’ [online] available at <https://www.customerinsightgroup.com/marketinglibrary/social-media-marketing/what-is-a-social-media-marketing-campaign > accessed 13th February 2018

Quigley, A. (2018) ‘5 Successful Social Media Campaigns You Can Learn From’, Trends& Insights [online] available at <https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/5-successful-social-media-campaigns-you-can-learn-from > accessed 12th February 2018

Zatat, N. (2017) “Social media experiment has revealed how simple it is to create a fake Instagram account and make money from them”, The Independent, 11th August 2017 [online] available at < http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/social-media-experiment-fake-instagram-accounts-make-money-influencer-star-blogger-mediakix-a7887836.html > accessed 13th February 2018

 

 

How fashion brands can use social media influencers on Instagram to build brand awareness

 

A social media influencer is any user on a social media platform who has established credibility in a specific industry (Pixlee,2017). Instagram is the  most effective channel for fashion brands to target. Additionally, research states that fashion brands see their highest engagement on Instagram (L2,2014); (TrackMaven,2015). For this reason, social media influencers would be most effective on this platform.

Pros of using social media influencers

Long (2107) discusses five reasons on why brands should take advantage of this marketing opportunity:

1) Traditional ads are becoming ineffective.

2) It is the new trend- 59% of marketers increased budget on influencer marketing in 2016.

3) Its naive- 92% of consumer’s trust recommendations from individuals over brands.

4) High return on investment if successful – 11 times higher than a traditional digital campaign.

5)Your product reaches the most active audience- 74% of consumers use social media to make purchase decisions.

Click here to read more on the benefits of social media influencers

In addition, Barker (2017) points out the gaining of ‘consumer trust’ is another factor attracting brands towards this form of marketing.

Brands often struggle to build a relationship with customers due to high competition in the industry and rapid spread of negative press (Schmidt,2017). However, using a credible social media influencer removes the initial barrier between a brand and a customer but rather directs the customer straight towards the brand. This is because they have built life long relationships with their followers, thus gaining their trust. This trust is developed over a period of time and often gained by releasing honest content e.g. reviews and recommendations on products.

Examples of sponsored Instagram posts:

 

Examples of brands that have been successful  with social media influencer marketing (Talbot, 2015):

1) Birchbox, a beauty company teamed up with teamed up with lifestyle blogger Emily Schuman to curate their May box, the product was posted in five Instagram photos.

Likes received: over 18,000

Consumer reach: over 55,000

2) Madewell, clothing brand teamed up with five influencers to promote the anniversary of their signature tote in their #TOTEWELL campaign.

Consumer reach: over a million

Now you know the benefits of using influencer marketing, the next step is knowing how to choose the right influencer to promote your product out of the thousands that currently exist. And to help simplify the process, Hamann (2014) developed five tips to help brands find the right candidate:

1) Relevance- research the blogger, is the content aligned with the brand image?

2) Engagement- does the blogger engage with the followers? i.e. responds to enquires

3) Reach- Does the message grasp an adequate amount of followers?

4) Frequency- How frequent do they blog?

5) Authenticity- is the content compelling and engaging?

Click here to read more on how to select the right inlfuencer 

Nonetheless, not everything is smooth sailing when it comes to influencer marketing, other than the fact that there is no guarantee it will be successful. A good strategy takes 90 days to develop and implement (Fryrear, 2015). In addition, research now shows that 30% consumers find that posts with the sponsored hashtags inauthentic (#as, #spon or #paid)  (Bockholt, 2017). Thus making it crucial to pick an social media personality that does not regularly make sponsored posts. Correspondingly, an effective posting schedule would have to be research, designed and implemented to avoid influencers being unfollowed. This is because a survey found that 37%  of females unfollowed an influencer due to frequent posting of sponsored content(Bockholt, 2017).

However, many brands fail to reach their potential, Kowalke (2016) states five reasons why:

1) Getting a popular influencer not a successful one

2) The influencer doesn’t suit the brand

3) Not communicating with your influencer, thus failing to build a relationship

4) Having a restriction on creative content

5) Expecting fast results

To read on how to avoid these mistakes, click here

NB. Fashion brands must remember that the relationship between them and the influencer can make or break a successful marketing campaign. A relationship helps the influencer understand and care about the brand helping them to promote it effectively. Furthermore, the relationship is then often noticed by the consumer. For example, in a blog this is from the body language and emotions the influencer is portraying.

To conclude, it is clear the potential for influencer marketing to build brand awareness is phenomenal, and in the long run the benefits of brands investing in social media influencers on Instagram outweigh the negatives. Nonetheless, marketers’ must remember that a large following doesn’t always equate to a credible influencer, existing app allow for any user to purchase followers. Thus thorough research must be conducted on each potential influencer as it can save the brand embarrassments and a financial loss.

Reference:

Barker, S. (2017) ‘8 Of The Biggest Benefits of Social Influencer Marketing You Need to Know Now’ Shane Barker, 14th November,2017

Bockholt, S. (2017) ‘The Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing’, TheCore, 3rd March 2017 [online] available at < https://www.dma-solutions.com/thecoreblog/the-pros-and-cons-of-influencer-marketing > 27th December 2017

Fryrear, A. (2015) ‘We Investigate the Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing so You Don’t Have to’, Marketgizmo, 17th March 2015 [online] available at < http://www.marketergizmo.com/we-investigate-the-pros-and-cons-of-influencer-marketing-so-you-dont-have-to/ >24th December 2017

Hamann, H. (2014) ‘5 Tips for Finding the Right Social Influencers for Your Brand’, Covince&CovertBlog, 11th December 2014 [online] available at < http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/5-tips-for-finding-the-right-social-influencers-for-your-brand/ > accessed 21th December 2017

Kowalke, P. (2016) ‘5 Common Influencer Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid them’, Agile CRM, 1st September 2016 [online] available at <https://www.agilecrm.com/blog/5-common-influencer-marketing-mistakes-avoid/  >27th December 2017

Long, J. (2017) ‘5 Reasons Why You Need to Take Advantage of Influencer Marketing’, Entrepreneur, 16th January 2017 [online] available at < https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287740 >accessed 20th December 2017

L2 (2014) cited in Cook, K. (2017) “15 Fashion Brands You Should Follow on Instagram for Marketing Inspiration” HubSpot, 22nd May 2017 [online] available at < https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/fashion-brands-on-instagram > assessed 27th December  2017

Pixlee (2017) [online] available at <https://www.pixlee.com/definitions/definition-social-media-influencer  > accessed 20th December 2017

Schmidt, S. (2017) ‘5 Top Apparel Industry Trends in 2017’, Market Research Blog, 26th June 2017 [online] available at < https://blog.marketresearch.com/5-top-apparel-industry-trends-in-2017> assessed 23th December 2017

Talbot, K. (2015) ‘5 Brands on Instagram That Succeed With Influencer Marketing’ [online] available at <https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-brands-on-instagram-that-succeed-with-influencer-marketing/> assessed 27th December  2017

Track Maven (2015) cited in White, R, L. (2016) “6 Reasons Why Fashion Marketing Rules Social Media” TrackMaven, 2nd February 2016 [online] available at < https://trackmaven.com/blog/6-reasons-why-fashion-marketing-rules-social-media/ > assessed 23th December 2017

How to check whether your social media audit approach is working for your fashion brand

The hype of social media in digital marketing is at its peak, on average a person has over 5 social media accounts and spends nearly 2 hours browsing (Davidson, 2015). Furthermore, 25% of content that appears in web searches for specific brand names is generated by consumers themselves. In turn, consumers often trust those social media messages more than news articles or advertising about the brand (Quesenberry, 2015). Thus a social media audit is necessary in order to discover if your social media investments are paying off and if not what strategies need to be implemented.

Approach #1

Quesenbery (2015) offers a fantastic social media audit approach that is suitable for “big” established fashion brands such as Pretty Little Things that have more than three social media channels, ‘a social media audit template’. This method takes on what consumers are saying about the brand, what the brand itself are doing and what competitors are doing on their own social media channels. In turn, aims to answer the 5w’s (who, where, what, when and why) on each of the individual social media accounts. The feedback generated being either positive or negative aids in implementing a unique social marketing strategy to improve future performance.

Pros: Enables the brand to find out how a customer perceives them, identifies the purpose of each social media channel and highlights how often each channel is used.

Cons: Time consuming

Click her to read more on how to conduct a ‘social media template audit

Approach #2

Lee (2016) offers another social media audit approach, and includes only three steps:

Step 1- Examine social media accounts, this step is straight forward. Locate all current social media accounts both official and unofficial, then check if details of each account are completed and consistent with the other accounts. Lastly, compare current performance with performance of 1 or 2 years ago.

Step 2- Examine those who do it well, in the fashion industry this is common and noticeable because the content produced by each brand is very similar if not the exact same, i.e. trendy outfit ideas, upcoming seasonal releases, high profile collaborations or the standard sales information. As the saying goes, ‘if it works why change it’.

Step 3- Set future goals you want to achieve, often advisable to set goals that can measured goals such as growth in followers, increased engagement and content, identifying what posts/content consumers want.

Pros: Facilities consistency in all social media channels and emphasises the use of goal setting.

Cons: If not careful copying what your competitors are doing might lead to the brand losing its own identity.

Click here to read more on the 15 min social media audit approach 

Is there a social media platform more effective than the other?

The answer is YES.

INSTAGRAM

Several research shows that Instagram fashion brands see the highest engagement on Instagram thus confirming it is the most effective channel for fashion brands. Therefore, implying it should be a priority when performing a social media audit and initiating strategies   (L2, 2014); (TrackMaven, 2015)

Click here to read more on the benefits of and how to use Instagram in the fashion industry 

source: L2 (2014)  source: Track Maven (2015)

 

 

Nonetheless, all social media channels require a considerable amount of attention when performing an audit. This is because each platform offers a slightly different service. For example, Twitter is often used by fashion brands to engage with consumers about enquires or complaints. Whereas, Instagram is used by fashion brands to showcase products and services, increase brand loyalty and to share company news and updates (Reed,2017)

Examples of successful fashion brands to follow:   

  1. Victoria’s secret currently has got over 57.8 million followers on Instagram, 28 million likes on Facebook and 11.3 million followers on Twitter (as of 23 November 2017)
  2. Forever 21 has currently got over over 14.1 million followers on Instagram, 14 million likes on Facebook and 2.3 million followers on Twitter (as of 23 November 2017)

Disclaimer. These figure are un achievable in a short amount of time but requires marketers to invest time and resources into producing content that appeals to customers, the content then requires testing, listening to feedback and fine tuning (Thompson, 2016).

 

        

 

Examples of fashion brands not to follow:

  1. DKNY, a luxury clothing brand is listed as one of the lowest rated brands when measured against the five key metrics (social visibility, general visibility, net sentiment, reach growth, and social engagement and content)(Strugatz,2015). The brand has currently got over 1.6 million followers on Instagram, 1.8 million likes on Facebook and half a million follower on Twitter (as of 28 November 2017).

Compared to its competitors such as Dior and Prada these figures are very low. Additionally, the brand only post an average of one picture a day on its Instagram account. In turn, tremendously affecting social engagement and content opportunity, as discussed above Instagram is a favourable platform in the fashion industry (L2, 2014).

To conclude, fashion marketers must remember that a large following doesn’t always equal engagement, customers want favourable content which can only be efficiently identified and achieved by analysing current social media practices and implementing changes accordingly to best suit.

 

References

Davidson, L. (2015) “Is your daily social media usage higher than average?” The Telegraph, 17th May 2015 [online] available at <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11610959/Is-your-daily-social-media-usage-higher-than-average.html> assessed 25th November 2017

Lee, K. (2014) The 15-Minute Social Media Audit Everyone Can Do, BufferSocial, 25th March 2014 [online] available at < https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-audit > assessed 27th November 2017

L2 (2014) cited in Cook, K. (2017) “15 Fashion Brands You Should Follow on Instagram for Marketing Inspiration” HubSpot, 22nd May 2017 [online] available at < https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/fashion-brands-on-instagram > assessed 25th November 2017

Quesenberry, K, A.  (2015) “Conducting a social media audit” The Harvard Business Review, 18th November 2015 [online] available at <  https://hbr.org/2015/11/conducting-a-social-media-audit > assessed 24th November 2017

Reed, A. (2017) A Complete Guide to Instagram Marketing: Get the Playbook That Drives Results for Instagram’s Top Profiles, BufferSocial, 14th July,2016 [online] available at < https://blog.bufferapp.com/instagram-marketing > assessed 28th November 2017

Strugatz,R.(2015) “Fashion Brands: Lots of Fans, Low Engagement” WWD, 30th September 2015 [online] available at < http://wwd.com/business-news/retail/michael-kors-calvin-klein-brandwatch-social-media-study-10246897/ > assessed 28th November 2017

Thompson, K. (2016) “Luxury Brands Social Media: The winners & losers” Silverbean, 21st June 2016 [online] available at < https://www.silverbean.com/blog/luxury-brand-social-media/ > assessed 27th November 2017

Track Maven (2015) cited in White, R, L. (2016) “6 Reasons Why Fashion Marketing Rules Social Media” TrackMaven, 2nd February 2016 [online] available at < https://trackmaven.com/blog/6-reasons-why-fashion-marketing-rules-social-media/ > assessed 24th November 2017

 

Are lululemon’s web designing team doing it right?

It would seem to be obvious that not all webistes serve the same purpose, therfore  would require different needs and characteristics to ensure the consumer leaves with a positive experience and potenetially returns in the future.

In reference to The OCHN Framework, the characteristics are split into three different categories; Structaul firmness these are characteristics that influence the websites perfomance and security. Functional convience, these charactersitics aid the consumers navigation and site’s ease of use. Lastly, Representational delight, these characteristics stimulate a consumers atmospherics sense (Valacich et al,2007).

In addition, Valacish et al (2007) states that a natural trade off will occur  in regards to the design of a website this is due to situational factors, design complexity and resource limitation.

Lululemon, is fast growing Canadian sports apparell brand operating in over 354 stores worldwide. The brand primarly known  for their trendy high quality womens’ yoga range did expand into  running and gym clothing  for both men and women.

Upon arrival on the webiste it is clear that the structual firmness and functional convience are important characteirtics to the brand. The website is easy to use with secure payment methods. This statement is also supported with previous experience I  received when  purchasing from the brand. Futhermore, having read through the reviews no consumer  has yet to complain about security problems in regards to payment.

In reference to Maslow’s heirachy of needs (1943) structual firmness is the most critical to ensure the survival and success of the website (Valacich et al,2007). Additonally, it would appear that Lululemon made this a priority when designing the website, justified by the growing positive brand image, increase in demand and revenue generated throughout the years, having increased by $1.8 million in the last 7 years (Lululemon Annual Report, 2017).

In terms of the services the website  offer, it would suggest it follows a utilitarian approach as consumers are concerned with payment issues and security aswell as ease of use whislt navigating around the website trying to find their desired product.

In conlcusion, the success of Lululemon and its offical website is because the company was able to provide an acceptable level of each of the OCHN framework charactieristics, this in turn has fulfilled the consumers baisc needs.

Refrences

Lululemon Annual Report (2017) [online] avaialble at < http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/LULU/5453424475x0x941937/6CB850C1-E247-4BA0-B173-1F77C33E8FD1/lululemon_2016_AR_FINAL.PDF > accessed 25 October 2017

Maslow,A,H. (1943) citied in Valacich, J.S., Parboteeah, D.V. and Wells, J.D., 2007. The online consumer’s hierarchy of needs. Communications of the ACM, 50(9), pp.84-90.

Valacich, J.S., Parboteeah, D.V. and Wells, J.D., 2007. The online consumer’s hierarchy of needs. Communications of the ACM, 50(9), pp.84-90.