Statistica reports that there will be more than 3 billion active social media users by the end of 2021. While the number is staggering, it certainly offers a lot of potential for digital businesses. Not to forget 3 billion means half of the world population. With that fact, it is obvious that digital commerce will only rise further.

How Can Fashion Brands Use Social Media?

Fashion industry has grown by manifolds in the past few years, especially after social media channels emerged and grew. Today it is a $2.4 trillion-worth industry.

We all see fashion posts on and off on social media channels. Top fashion brands like Macy, Gucci, Prada, and many others are going big on social marketing because:

• It generates revenue
• It converts faster
• It helps engage users
• It keeps the digital engine running

If you are still not convinced how social media is changing the dynamics of fashion industry, then read on. With over 2 billion social media users as of the writing of this report, your customers are already lingering on social media platforms.

What does it mean for fashion store owners? It means that social media channels offer a way for you to market your products to a wider audience. Whether you are selling leather jackets or yoga pants, there is a market available on social media that you can easily use to double your sales.

Best Ways Fashion Brands Can Get More Sales through Social Media Channels

Take Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or any other platform. All of them have one thing in common. Attention. If you can get the attention of the users on these channels, there is no turning back.

Although the technicalities of getting attention will be different on these channels, however, the ways we have identified will work on all of them in the same way.
Let’s read the top strategies that fashion brands can use to make it big on social media this year.

1. Make Your Fashion Posts Click

According to Post Planner, currently, the biggest worry of social media managers is to improve the quality of leads they get from social media channels.

Moreover, Social Media Examiner’s 2017 report suggests that more than 65 percent of businesses on social media platforms want to generate leads. However they are not just interested in generating leads but qualified leads that can help them increase conversion rate and move the needle further.

A few businesses have cracked the code to getting it right on social media. One of them is the Macy’s. Take a look at how it markets its products on social media. All of these are impulse products, so people buy them in an instant.

2. More Content = More Search Engine Rankings

Lyfe Marketing, a social media marketing agency, suggests that social media marketing can DEFINITELY impact search engines. It says that the traffic doesn’t directly impact the search rankings. Let’s say you market a product on social media, and then you see increased search rankings, it doesn’t happen that way. However, there is a direct correlation in the number of social signals and the ranking position of posts.

It means posts that rank well in social media tend to rank higher in search engines as well.

Also, yes, there has been a lot of debate on how social media can impact search rankings, but there are certain obvious reasons that back the fact. These are:

• Search engines index posts faster that are on social media
• Social media posts get more authority
• Posts on social media are more likely to get backlinks, which indirectly impact search traffic

3. Community Management Is the Key

Social media offers a lucrative way for any brand to build a social media community. For instance, there are a dozen affiliate marketing forums. If you have an active affiliate program, you can go into these affiliate marketing communities and persuade them to join your websites. But you won’t just be persuading them to join you. You will have to look at their pain points. What are some problems that people are facing, and how you can solve them?

Community helps people engage, interact, and feel connected. Majority businesses are not able to tap into community marketing on social media because they are too busy focusing on marketing rather than solving customer pain points.

4. Replicate Your Competitors

See how your fashion competitors are marketing on social media and then use the same tactics for your marketing. Burke Hedges of Copy Cat Marketing 101 says that the best way you can market your products better is by following how others are doing it, then replicating it, and doing it better than them. This is a plain and simple strategy, yet many are oblivious to it.

There are many tools you can use to know how your competitors are marketing their products, including Social Blade, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Sparktoro.

You can use these tools to learn more about how your successful competitors market their products. Even if you don’t have tools available, social media is transparent, and you can go to their pages and see the following:

• What type of content they are posting
• How much interaction they are getting
• Are they responsive? Do they reply to each user
• Are they active on social media communities
• Do they form a partnership with other pages on social media
• Do they run their own community pages
• How much informational content and how much promotional content do they post in a month

5. Focus On Influencer Marketing

One of the best ways to get more sales through social media is by using influencers. Influencers are celebrities on social platforms. They have thousands of followers. Most of them are willing to promote other products for a small price. If you can get some of these influencers to promote your products, you will have more orders coming to your website. Also, you can place native advertisements on influencers’ feeds.

Influencer platforms such as Grin and Buzzweb can help you find relevant influencers for your website or ecommerce stores. These platforms allow you to find the most suitable influencers based on their follower count, engagement rate, and niche.

6. Establish Your Fashion Brand as an Authority

Last but not the least, the best way to win BIG on social media is to establish your brand as an authority. This means your page should be the go-to resource for every question related to the pain points you are trying to solve. Look at how Leather Skin Shop, a leather jacket brand is giving tips to people on how to measure yourself at home on its Facebook account.

When your page receives more traffic, it will eventually lead to more traffic on your website and then more sales.

Bottom-line

The best way to market on social media is to understand the gaps that your competitors are not filling. When you have found those gaps and covered them, it is just a matter of time before people will start coming to your page. They will understand that you are an authority and will eventually trust you. So you can easily market your products and promote your offers.

This guest post was written by Mary Warner who loves to share her views related to latest trends in marketing, technology, ecommerce, and the like.

For most people, virtual reality sounds like an imaginary concept from science fiction, but in reality, VR has been present on the market for quite some time.

By definition, virtual reality is “computer-simulated surroundings which have the capacity to simulate physical presence in real or imaginary worlds”.

Virtual reality (VR) is predicted to completely disrupt the shopping experience. According to Goldman Sachs, the estimates of VR investments (including augmented reality) will reach 1.6 billion dollars until 2025.

While many brands are making an effort to become a part of the VR ecosystem, they are not quite familiar with the ways of improving the brand experience for all consumers and with the contexts where VR technology could and should be used. At the same time, many marketers wonder whether now is the right time to invest in VR.

VR apps include automated virtual environments (AVEs), such as headsets, virtual glasses, games, 360 computer simulations and the virtual world such as Second Life.

For example, Swarovski partnered up with Mastercard to create a virtual atelier which anyone can access after downloading the app. Next to getting information about a particular collection or a product, customers can also do virtual shopping.

Recent research pointed out that marketers should have different approaches to VR depending on their industry or sector. For example, apps that completely captivate the user into a virtual world are better for consumer education, such as Lowe’s DIY Holoroom, or to create a relationship with the brand, such as in the case of a virtual shopping consultant in Second Life.

Here are some of the best examples of the use of VR in marketing:

Tesco – Virtual Store Browsing

Investing in physical space takes a lot of time and money, so the possibility of understanding customers, their needs and desires (regarding layout, colors, offer, etc.) at a low price is the dream of every retailer.

British supermarket chain Tesco enabled its shoppers to browse around their virtual storebefore they have actually built the object.

The goal of this marketing project was to study customer behavior as they “wander” the e-store. Tesco managed to find out numerous useful pieces of information which served them through better strategic planning of shelves, layout and more.

Using virtual reality technology, Tesco saved money and time necessary to plan the element layout within a retail store.

If we look at the achievement of this project as a big picture, it shows that VR could easily replace physical shopping and make the process of grocery shopping much easier for customers and cost-effective for the company.

Product Customization

Furniture manufacturer IKEA already took advantage of the new VR trend to provide an unforgettable experience for their customers.

IKEA shoppers can view their desired kitchen in natural size and use the versatile options and settings to independently design the final product.

The same strategy is obviously very applicable in other sectors, as well. For example, the fashion industry could be the first to widely accept VR in product customization.

Coca-Cola – Virtual Sleigh Ride

In 2015, Coca-Cola experimented with VR technology and enabled passers-by to experience a virtual sleigh ride. The crowd was absolutely thrilled with the project and the feeling of being Santa, even for a little while.

This modern approach to marketing enabled Coca-Cola to strengthen its brand position and awareness, and to provide a completely new experience for users who had a chance to see Christmas from another perspective.

“The same approach could be used in games, prize raffles and sweepstakes: using virtual reality, brands can present games that will include products, discounts and other prizes for their great score,” says Estelle Leotard, a contributing writer for Subjecto and Studyker.

Volvo XC90 – Test Drive

In 2019, Volvo allowed potential shoppers to see the car in a completely different light by enabling a virtual test drive of the new model through a VR app.

Even though the cutthroat, competitive automotive industry doesn’t regard Volvo as among the most “cutting-edge” marketers, the VR experiment definitely proved to be a step forward which made Volvo stand out from its competitors.

VR in Mobile Apps

There is also huge potential in implementing VR in mobile apps on smartphones. Using this technology, brands could get an additional possibility of communicating with shoppers in a unique way.

Conclusion: Why is VR Effective in Marketing?

Marketing agencies have started opening specialized departments for virtual reality. But, is it still too early to implement this technology in marketing?

VR in marketing provides a physical experience for shoppers and enables them to simulate the use of a product before deciding to buy it. Therefore, VR is a significant opportunity both for manufacturers and shoppers, and offers limitless possibilities.

The efficiency of VR depends on the app itself and consumer behavior. One of the key aspects is fluidity – creating an environment where customers feel completely submerged and active in a virtual world.

This guest article was written by Bridgette Hernandez, a Master in Anthropology who is interested in writing and is planning to publish her own book in the near future. She works with professional writing companies such as TopEssayWritings and ClassyEssay and as a writer, Brid also does some editing work WriteScout.