As hoards of fashionistas descended on the Big Smoke last February for London Fashion Week, no doubt many brands were there to build buzz about their labels. Unsurprisingly, many turned to social media for help.
Throughout the week, competitions, updates and photos flooded Twitter and social media sites. Impressively, for brands big and small, the conversation was a boon to audience engagement, brand awareness and sales.
Bloggers steal the limelight
In previous years, the brand stars of fashion week were celebrities and magazine editors. This year, bloggers stole the show, both as brand evangelists and brand partners, thus turning these bloggers into celebrities in their own right. For example…
- Susie Bubble of Style Bubble sang praises (and pictures) of Medham Kirchoff
- Poppy Disney of What I Wore Today ran competitions, interviews and live updates from the catwalk (some of which became the most retweeted tweets of London Fashion Week)
- Internet superstar Cory Kennedy filmed livestream interviews with bloggers at the Diesel Black Gold Show
Whether directly or indirectly, bloggers had a prominent voice in London Fashion Week, and savvy brands like Diesel were wise to enlist some of those voices to build as much buzz as possible during the event. We expect to see more of these fashion brand / blogger partnerships in the future.
On Twitter, competitions steel the show
A Twitter analysis by social media marketing firm Market Sentinel revealed the power of competitions for London Fashion Week brands.
The most shared Twitter links were to competitions: What I Wore Today’s Mulberry / Miss Sixty giveaway and Adorn London’s Merle O’Grady jewellery contest. The competitions reflect how fashion brands shrewdly pair with influential blogs to cut through general coverage and drive conversations.
Other brands, including and , used Twitter to engage with LFW participants. in particular, an official sponsor of London Fashion Week, skilfully used Twitter to communicate with the London Fashion Week community, adding a layer of engagement and dialogue to their presence at the event.
Dedicated Mercedes London Fashion Week account
Facebook brings power to the little guy
Market Sentinel also looked at Facebook activity around the major labels participating in London Fashion week. Surprisingly, the major brands – Topman, Paul Smith, sass & bide, and Stella McCartney had next to no engagement during fashion week, despite being the brands with the most fans.
Instead, it was the lesser known brands who took advantage. For example, look at 25-year-old , comparatively new to the scene. With only 1,362 fans on Facebook, he’s not exactly winning any popularity contests. Yet Anderson did a stellar job of using Facebook and Fashion Week together to get people psyched about his brand. Posting photos, news articles and other updates, no doubt Anderson’s fan count is on the up and up.
The big winner (on Facebook anyway) was , who had the most activity overall and is also high in the list of top fans.
Life after London Fashion Week
LFW may have come and gone but what it left in its very stylish wake is a lot of great lessons for media and marketing folk.
- Competitions that involve the right partners and a concise mechanic work very, very well
- Event sponsors who are active in event-related online conversation enrich their presence offline
- Bloggers in the fashion community are becoming more important each year; as their value increases, brands need to consider more creative ways to partner with them
- Creative coverage, exclusive interviews and back stage access help to differentiate event diaries from those typically edited by traditional magazines and influential blogs
Photo credit: swamibu
By Dhiren Shingadia, Head of Product Marketing at Market Sentinel
