The Context of Social Media for Fashion Brands
We tend to hear a lot about putting out content, content, content but very little about context.
I’ve been delving into this concept deep as of late and came across this paragraph in Gary Vaynerchuck’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook that I’d like to explore.
“You can’t just repurpose old material created for one platform, throw it up on another one, and then be surprised when everybody yawns in your face.”
— Gary Vaynerchuck
There are a number of ways you can add context to your content, most important of all actually engaging with your followers and conversing with them about it. Use the power of words to give it meaning and then enjoy being authentically social.
If you post a video on YouTube with style inspiration, then make sure to encourage some feedback in the comments and stick around to offer some extra tips for anybody who asks.
Secondly you need to dress for the occasion. By this I mean those boring high-key product shots from your e-commerce site are not what people want their feed filled with on Instagram and likewise those beautiful, artistic lifestyle shots that rule there are not what people expect in their Snapchats (yes, I’ve actually seen brands taking pictures of pictures to achieve this).
Whilst some of the assets can be repurposed, the way you package and present the content needs to be tailored for each platforms own nuances.
Lets look at Converse for a great example of a brand that understands the nuances of different platforms and the variety of content they put out around their iconic Chuck Taylor All Stars.
YouTube
I would argue that whilst there is still a lot of benign content on YouTube, it’s no longer the place people go just to watch funny cat videos, we want a little more meat on the bones of our content and Converse know a 30 second product spot alone isn’t enough.
It has matured into a democratized television network which works especially well for educational or authentic documentary style content.
I’ve selected this Made by You feature to spotlight as it specifically relates to their product and I feel it’s a good example of combining marketing with their brands counter-culture and focus on individualism.
They have also created some great long-form content that is perfectly suited for YouTube including this 30 minute skate documentary, The Converse One Star World Tour.
As one of the most innovative of the big five, things are always changing at Facebook and right now they are pushing video hard.
It’s not quite the place for long form content like YouTube just yet as there are far too many distractions in our news-feed to keep us there but I imagine I’ll be revisiting this topic 12–18 months from now and have started cross-posting my longer content to Facebook videos, just in case.
It is however a great platform for sharing short, attention grabbing videos that Facebook currently reward with extremely low-cost, high-performance paid promotion.
This video is a great example of Converse using that to their advantage.
The current attention whore of fashion & lifestyle brands for marketing, Instagram is the place where everybody gets to play professional photographer and people want to be wowed by #awesome content daily from the brands they follow.
A tried and true path for success on Instagram is to keep your content native and authentic which this product shot is a great example of.
Notice how much more appealing this is for Instagram than boring product shots on a white background. There is nothing wrong with still life shots, just be creative with them!
PINTREST
Pinterest has become one of the top platforms for ecommerce brands in terms of ROI and I’ll admit that out of these five it’s probably the one I have least explored from a marketing perspective.
I was however an early adopter using Pintrest personally and turn to it quite often for pinning photo-shoot inspirations as it’s visual search and scrapbook mechanics are fantastic.
For fashion brands I do know that this is a place that your product shots will not only work but will flourish as consumers pin them for their wish-lists and with a clickable link directly to the item in your store its easy to see the value of the platform.
This simple catalog image I’ve selected received 102 repins whilst the shot from our Instagram example that has been reposted here received only 44.
This is the perfect example of content vs context to end this article on. Or at least it would be, if we didn’t have one more social network to look at (that also happens to be my current favourite).
SNAPCHAT
Now I can’t show you examples of their Snapchat content but that is the beauty of the platform. It’s real-time, authentic and demands 100% attention from the people who consume it as if you blink you miss it and it’s gone forever.
For me, I love Snapchat as a platform for micro-vlogging and it gives me an outlet to get creative with daily story telling.
Converse are doing a great job of adapting to the context of this platform and achieve this by arranging daily takeovers of their Snapchat from counter-culture icons who are brand advocates.
The day in the life stories hardly talk about Converse at all and are simply great content for their followers, true jabs if you like.
Whilst writing this article, stories have been shared from both Samantha Duesnas (@susupersam), a Los Angeles DJ and Lee Spielman (@LeeSpielman), frontman for Trash Talk in Sacramento.
Go ahead and give them a snap.
And while you’re at it, snap mine for daily insights, behind the scenes and fun stories.
Thanks for reading!
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Originally published at www.adammarcwilliams.co.uk.
