Standing out from Social Media Noise

As more and more online marketers are using social media as a mean of getting traffic into their blog or website, it is extremely crucial for one to stand out from the social media crowd. In the social media environment you want to be noticed and you got to have a social media strategy to help guide you to focus on getting noticed in the social media world. 

The Social Media Stand-out Strategy 

1. Understand your target audience, know what they want to know. Research on what sites they usually visit and review the content of these sites. Then make sure that  you are creating compelling content for your target audience, and the content will also have to be different from the other sites they usually visit, they don’t want to read the same thing again. 

2. Be resourceful and not self-promotional, to be a true market leader in your niche, you want to be known for creating up to date information and for being a reliable source of information. Break news, share blog posts you’re reading, retweet or share updates from other Market Leaders in your space and mix in your own updates as well. Ultimately,  you want to be considered a valuable resource and not self-promotional. 

3. Reach out and connect with your target audience, search for bloggers in your community and interact with them by commenting on their posts. Follow other twitter users who have similar interest as you then make sure you are posting links to your social media content in twitter. Most importantly check your social media tools like twitter and facebook regularly and focus in on replies and mentions. If you ignore these replies and mentions, you will eventually be ignored in the social media world.

4. Let your readers do the promotion by allowing them to embed or link  your photos, videos, and blog posts from social networking sites like Facebook. This create buzz to your site and allows for exponential increases in views. Furthermore, encourage sharing with widgets that can be added to a blog like “Share This” ,“Add This.” , Stumble, Digg, Tweet, bookmark your page, or share your content on Facebook.

A Place for Fashion <3ers in the Social Media World

Want to be a Karl? Want to be a Kate Moss? or Want to be a Nigel Barker? The people of BALLSMEDIA who used to work at agency-side consulting multinationals like Unilever, PepsiCo, KLM, has came up with a site for fashion <3ers to showcase themselves. This new social media site is going to be the next big thing in fashion. What is it?

Its ….

Sounds Eggggxiting X)))))!

Finally a place for ordinary fashionistas and fashion lovers to break into the fashion industry. This will further initiate the inversion of the classic hierarchy of top designers setting trends which filter down into the high street. Street fashioistas are starting to set the trends. Street stylin is in right now with top street fashion sites like Lookbook.nu, Facehunter and The Sartorialist, giving fashion inspiration to many others worldwide.

Personally I am attracted to the unique and original, I get turned off when I see people wearing the same kinda thing, with the social media and new fashion sites it gives more inspiration to people to experiment with different styles and showcase their individual personalities.

JustProud allows members to communicate and interact with one-another and encourages participation from its members. Members contribute their opinions, knowledge & talents from the start, through the design, modeling and photography stages to the end product: selling their clothes and accessories. Ultimately, JUSTPROUD members themselves will be the designers, models & photographers.

JustProud Social media foundations
The familiar social media principles remain the same. Anyone interested in the fashion industry can become a founding member for free, invite their friends and network. If you want to be actively involved in the design, modeling or photography stages you can also upload portfolios of your work. All members are invited to make the important decisions. Members can promote their choices and get as many votes as possible; the most popular designs will be produced and the most popular models and photographers will be signed to the ad campaigns. Their clothes and accessories will also be sold through members.

Seriously I can’t wait to graduate from Poly and Uni and freakkkkkinn start my own biz…. its gonna be a veryyyy competitive world out there in the fashion industry. I guess the only trick to survive is to stand out , be original and ultimately be unique.

For more information visit the site http://justproud.com/en/

Fashion Twittering

As you know, Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media tools and many brands and marketers are using it as a portal to reach out to their audience. Followers get up-to-date information about fashion from many different sources in Twitter. Fashion Brands, Fashion Magazines and Fashion Lovers are constantly twitting links from their twitter, and followers like me get to enjoy latest updates in the fashion world and also share it with our friends by re-tweeting it.

Twitter has also provided fashion bloggers and online shops a platform to showcase themselves. These are some examples of useful ways to use twitter:

• Keeping up with the latest trends and fashions
• Getting inspiration for posts on your fashion blog
• Getting feedback on your products/ ideas/ designs
• discovering lots of useful information on online marketing in general
• Getting answers to difficult questions/ solutions to business problems
• Giving customers or potential customers a way of contacting you directly.
• Getting your brand noticed by being a generally friendly, helpful and interesting person

Another thing about fashion twittering is that it allows fashion brands to give their fans an inside glimpse of the brand. For example, fashion brands tweet about their fashion shows and behind-the-scene pictures right at the time the fashion show is taking place, fans need not wait a day or two just to read it and it makes them feel like they are right there at the fashion show.

In her review in the New York times on Emporio Armani, Suzy Menkes wrote “The sweet bird of youth twittered through the Emporio Armani collection. You could imagine the girly couples on the runway with their short skirts, knee-high socks and just slightly daring punk-studded bags working their thumbs off later on as they shared with each other, via their mobile phones, comments about each cute item.” And immediately these comments form the ‘girly couples’ will be followed by many and they will probably give their own comments or RT them, creating lots and lots of buzz for Emporio Armani.

Twitter has a wealth of designers and retail companies who have taken on personalized pages of their own.

Here, a directory of some of the leading fashion industry Tweeters:
Adidas: www.twitter.com/adidasrunning
American Apparel: www.twitter.com/americanapparel
Baby Phat: www.twitter.com/BabyPhat
Banana Republic: www.twitter.com/BROfficial
BCBG Max Azria: www.twitter.com/BCBGMAXAZRIA
Betsey Johnson: www.twitter.com/xoBetseyJohnson
Brian Reyes: www.twitter.com/BrianReyes
Calvin Klein: www.twitter.com/calvinklein
Charlotte Ronson: www.twitter.com/cjronson and www.twitter.com/shopronson
Dior: www.twitter.com/Lady_Dior
Diane Von Furstenberg: www.twitter.com/InsideDVF
Donna Karan: www.twitter.com/dkny
French Connection: www.twitter.com/frenchconn39
The GAP: www.twitter.com/GapOfficial
Gucci: www.twitter.com/GuccibyGucci
H&M USA: www.twitter.com/hmusa
Hayden Harnet: www.twitter.com/hayden_harnett
Henry Holland: www.twitter.com/henryholland
Isaac Mizrahi: www.twitter.com/isaacmizrahi
J. Mendel: www.twitter.com/jmendelfashions
Kate Spade: www.twitter.com/katespadeny
Lacoste: www.twitter.com/LACOSTE
Liz Claiborne: www.twitter.com/LizClaiborneNY
Loehmanns: www.twitter.com/Loehmanns
Louis Vuitton: www.twitter.com/LouisVuitton_US
Marc Ecko: www.twitter.com/beingmarcecko
Nike: www.twitter.com/nikebasketball
Nordstrom: www.twitter.com/nordstrom
Oscar de la Renta: www.twitter.com/OscarPRgirl
Rachel Roy: www.twitter.com/rachel_roy
Rebecca Minkoff: www.twitter.com/RebeccaMinkoff
Saks: www.twitter.com/SaksSF
Stella McCartney: www.twitter.com/stellamccartney
T.J. Maxx: www.twitter.com/tjmaxx
Tory Burch: www.twitter.com/toryburch
Urban Outfitters: www.twitter.com/urbanoutfitters
Vivienne Tam: www.twitter.com/VivienneTam
William Rast: www.twitter.com/williamrast

The Relationship between Fashion Brands & Social Media

First, an introduction to the Social Media Revolution

Social Media is going to dominate the future, learning from my NCT lessons, the future of advertising, PR, Books,Music and ….Basically EVERYTHING is leaning towards using social media. If you are not in it, you are simply out of this world. Social Media is rewriting the rules for fashion brands, most fashion houses are going social media and are using SM sites like Twitter and Facebook. They are making a point that such channels are radically changing the way fashion brands engage with their customers and prospects online.

SM is an effective marketing tool for fashion brands, it gives brands great exposure and great opportunity to reach out to their TA. Best thing about it, it’s the free advertising and publicity and most importantly the virality that comes with it. What is Virality: The act of content on the web being spread by users sharing it, bringing new users to the original content and therefore adding additional utility.

“Customers can feel like they are part of the brand’s extended family, and therefore the brand itself, while the interactive element further deepens that relationship,” said Alex Bolen, chief executive officer of Oscar de la Renta. “These characteristics address and satisfy that ‘tribal’ part of the fashion consumer — the way in which people identify themselves by the brands they buy.”

A key component of social media “is real-time feedback — an ability to accurately measure marketing results,” Bolen said. “While this aspect of the Internet’s promise has yet to be fully realized, one can adjust, fairly quickly, to emphasize those initiatives that are working best.”

Brands can further expose and engaged their audience through updating their twitter on what inspires them or what they are currently doing and also posting fashion shows and behind the scenes videos on youtube . After all that they get feedback from their audience, listen to them and interact with them. This way the audience will feel like they “made” the brand and they will feel like they are a part of it. It’s not about you anymore, its about them.