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Social media is part of our lives. We use it to share contents or to stay connected with friends and it’s impossible to remind us of our life without it. The fashion industry uses social media to reduce the gap between brands and consumers as part of a social marketing that involves users through different networking sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Last year a report from Mittel (a research firm) revealed that more than 35 percent of millennial women in America consider social media as the top influencer when they make clothing purchases. Such a fact proves the incredible success of fashion bloggers like Chiara Ferragni followed by 7.4 million people on Instagram. Or what about Charlotte Groeneveld, aka Thefashionguitar.com, a style blogger who provides a sartorial how-to for styling statement dresses and skirts on her blog.
A social catwalk is the best way for the fashion industry to reach their audience and to interact with it better than traditional media and many famous fashion brands have all started launching social media campaigns throughout the decade.
The fashion world on Instagram
The marriage between Instagram and the fashion industry is becoming stronger and stronger. The most famous fashion brands look at Instagram as their top social media priority to level up visual storytelling during their fashion campaigns. Michael Kors was a pioneer of social media marketing and in 2013, it was the top fashion brand on social media after gaining 7 million new followers on Instagram.
Nike is probably one of the most followed brand on Instagram with more than 10 million followers and its PhotoiD campaign was an incredible success. It encouraged its followers to customize their trainers and share photos to show how personalized their products are.
Instagram and celebrities: how fashion is outside catwalks
Instagram tell stories without worrying about the quality of the content, what fans need is a first look as if they were in the middle of the catwalk. Fashion bloggers, celebrities and designers all of them use Instagram to help spread current fashion trends and showcase their style. Kylie Jenner for example is popular and powerful on Instagram thanks to her street style and her red carpet looks. Her sister, Kendall reached a follower count of nearly 84 million during the last Milan fashion Week obtaining both the top-liked model photo and video while at the same event, Gigi and Bella Hadid collected the most likes and comments for models.
For fashion brands the appeal is double: social media is cheaper and it seems more personal and authentic.
For customers and their fashionable addictions is obvious: they think they’re peeking at an exclusive and private world.
Burberry’s fragrance and campaign was probably one of the most revealing example of how the fashion industry is changing thanks to social media.
Brooklyn Beckham, the 17-year-old son of David and Victoria was the photographer for the fashion house generating not so polite comments on the web. However the Burberry boss Christopher Bailey noticed that Brooklyn has over 5.9 million Instagram followers: a good reason for such a choice and he’s a talented photographer too! As a result of that his behind-the-scenes pictures shared on Instagram and Snapchat reached 15 million impressions in eight hours.
According to the data from Instagram Gucci reigned over the last Milan Fashion Week. The Italian brand and its creative director Alessandro Michele obtained the greatest number of tags, mentions and comments in Milan as well as the most views on Instagram Stories. But the most liked event was represented by Donatella Versace’s tribute to her brother as the models’ follower counts spiked and Carla Bruni, Helena Christensen and Claudia Schiffer gained the highest follower percentage.
Leaving Milan we will move to Florence to take part to the Moda Prima Fashion Fair. A great event to be followed on Instagram!
