Social media is a marketing tool used by nearly every major brand in the world now. You’ve likely seen blue Fs and Twitter birds popping up in traditional advertising for a while now but are wondering how you can make this new wave of marketing work for you.
I’ve had the privilege of working with dozens of brands that used social media effectively to get the word out and build connections with their customers. In order to give you some insight into ways that you can benefit, I’m going to show you one of them from the inside out.
Vancouver Fashion Week is a brand that had a reasonable amount of brand awareness across the city, but the depth of that understanding was poor. As a result there were a lot of misconceptions about the brand, and good but not great attendance.
My goal at the outset of my work with Fashion Week was to get the fashion world’s attention, show them what the organization was up to, and convince people to come to the show as designers, media or paying attendees.
Those goals are no different than an event planner who wants people to understand what makes her events different, a boutique who wants the world to see its unique designs or any other brand, all with the ultimate objective of generating new business.
At Fashion Week we employed specific social media techniques to accomplish our goals. My suggestion for businesses starting off online is to take inspiration from one or two of these and try them out, measuring success and making adjustments along the way.
6 Fashion Week Techniques
- Candid Updates
- Insider Blog Posts
- LookBook
- Contests
- Foursquare
- Live Streaming
First of all, we all know how much people like inside information and taking a look behind the scenes. To tap into that desire we had people on the inside of the Fashion Week organization tweet and post information that only people on the inside had access to. From model fittings to venue tours, we were there sharing the experience with our fans.
As the planning went on, our followers felt like they were a part of the process. Their excitement built as they saw the peces coming together and couldn’t wait to see it in action.
Takeaway: People following your updates are looking for more than your regular advertising copy. Let them feel like a part of the process and they’ll feel a sense of ownership that traslates into loyalty.
People look to Fashion Week as a source of information about trends and looks. The people working inside of the event shared their insights and ideas on the blog with quick posts about what’s new and hot, or features on the designers to watch for at the event. Additionally, we reached out to people around the industry and shared benefit with them by allowing them to write guest posts.
The result was a loyal readership who read and shared our posts, building excitement about the upcoming shows.
Takeaway: Use your brand’s expertise to inform your site’s visitors and position yourself as an expert in your field.
Vancouver has a unique style, and Vancouver Fashion Week shows that off on the runways twice a year. The people of Vancouver live that style every day, so we took the runway to the street and photographed people’s fashion in their everyday lives. The photos and write-ups about those people were featured on our Facebook Page.
Our fans loved seeing style in casual settings, in a way that they could wear everyday. They shared that content across all of their profiles, and the people who were featured got all of their friends excited.
Takeaway: Get people involved with what you’re doing online, provide a benefit to them and they’ll turn around and advertise your brand for you.
We wanted to reward the people who had been so good to us while promoting the event. In order to do so we had them perform simple tasks like posting their own photos of Friday Fashion and sharing them with us along with the world. Winners were selected each time and those people attended shows as our guests.
People online who had never even heard of Vancouver Fashion Week were seeing their friends posting about us and winning passes. It got them curious and the number of people engaged grew each time.
Takeaway: Reward people for sharing your message and provide incentive for new people to become advocates.
Foursquare is a mobile application that allows people to check in to venues on their phones and their their friends about it. We set up a venue on Foursquare that people posted comments and photos to. Their friends were automatically alerted and they had the option to spread that message across Facebook and Twitter.
Takeaway: Give people every possible opportunity to interact with you and share their experience with their friends.
We were lucky to partner with an amazing local company Foy Media Group who provided high quality live streaming video from the shows. Our fans online were able to watch what was happening on the runways from home, or from anywhere that they had their mobile devices.
Thousands of people tuned in around the world, and many of the people who watched on the first few days showed up to in person to the next ones.
Takeaway: When you can, offer people a taste of what they’re missing and they’ll want more.
The result of these techniques, and many more efforts, was that nearly every show was lined up out the door and our attendance grew every day as increasing amounts of people were talking about us online.
Have questions or comments about how you can use techniques like these for your business? Comment below or contact me directly at Conner@JunctionMarketing.com.
