The battle is on for Facebook and Twitter in the fight for mobile users and online advertisers while Facebook is following Twitters lead on using hashtags. For those who are familiar with Social Media know that the hashtag-a word or phrase preceded by the “#” pound symbol— a way for people to collect many Twitter messages about a single news, event or topic is closely associated with Twitter. Now, Facebook is working on incorporating the hashtag into its service by using the symbol as a way to group conversations and possibly aiding its efforts on both the graph search and targeted advertising fronts. Instagram, which Facebook acquired last year, already uses hashtags, allowing users to sort photos by the symbol. Next, will Facebook.
If you are an emerging fashion brand I’m sure you face a lot of challenges. Budgets are tight, you may not have a strong relationship with the journalist and it can be difficult to explain something new. Despite these challenges, good press can help an emerging brand grow their bases, and after all it is a pretty important component for success. Read below for my PR tips.
1. Know what is Newsworthy
Be unique and add value beyond your existing customer. Before pitching, you have to figure out what is truly newsworthy especially to the publication your targeting. Here are some angles for approaching a journalist:
2. Make sure you have the items listed below available and ready to pitch:
Most of the time you want to just mention if the journalist is interested in learning more you can send more details with photos. Only in some cases it may make sense to include the photos in the initial pitch.
3. Additional Tips:
Google Analytics
Find out which social media platform drives the most traffic to your site. Use Google Analytics to see which platform or social campaign have contributed to driving traffic to your website.
Google Alerts
Keep informed of what others are saying about your brand. Use Google Alerts to receive an email updates and an RSS feed on when your brand is mentioned in blogs, news, etc.
Google Trends
Take the guess work out of figuring out which keywords you should use on social media. Use Google Trends to compare search terms and other sites. It gives you data on which terms are being used the most and which of your competitors are receiving traffic based on those keywords.
The Queen’s Coronation Festival in July from the 11th-14th will start to host a series of fashion shows in the heart of the Buckingham Palace Gardens. The shows will be a part of a story-line of British fashion and iconic style over the past sixty years, showcasing companies that have been awarded the Royal Warrant of Appointment. There will be a raised catwalk surrounded by a bed of flowers that will seat 400 attendees. Show themes will include vintage picnic, reinvention, best of British, and diamonds and pearls.
The world of fashion publishing has changed from esteemed and exclusive to an open source platform called blogs. Fashion brands and retailers have acknowledged that bloggers and online magazines deliver trends as well as news much faster than newspapers and print publications. If you are an emerging designer your probably thinking about including collaborations with fashion bloggers in your marketing strategies. Here are 3 ways that fashion designers can work with bloggers:
Sponsoring Contests & Giveaways
For brands and bloggers sponsoring contests and product reviews have been an increasingly popular promotional strategy. Sponsoring a blog contest can increase brand awareness, drive web traffic and generate buzz around a new product, especially if you have aligned specific goals and are measuring your success appropriately.
Product Placement
Fashion designers could offer bloggers products to promote. Bloggers would then wear the product and showcase it on their blog enticing their readers to that specific product and/or brand.
Ads
Fashion designers can advertisement on blog sites if advertising space is made available on that specific blog, not all fashion blog sites have ad space.
New social networks are being created more frequently alongside mobile apps and other digital interfaces. So how do you choose the right social networks for your brand?
Consider asking yourself the following questions:
1. Does this social network work for the type of brand that I have?
2. Does this social network work for my brand’s marketing and content strategy?
3. Do I have the content or the resources to create the content needed to keep consistent with this social network?
Asking the above questions in reference to each social media network would help you determine which social network would possibly be the best for your brand. But wait, that’s not it! After selecting the best social networks you would then test them to see if you have made the correct choice. You would want to test for engagement, traffic and sales.
Every business owner dreams of having their product endorsed by a celebrity. Celebrity endorsements have grown into a huge trend and successful endorsements can lead to a compelling and powerful connection with your brand. So how do you select the right celebrity for your product?
First, you would research and create a list of celebrities who you feel would best represent your brand taking into account of their personality, energy level, how they would appeal to your audience, and how available they would be for branding events and PR opportunities.
Second, you would test out the appeal of the celebrity with the demographic that your brand influences by thoroughly recognizing what your audience thinks of your chosen celebrity down to the smallest detail. The focused consumer test will certainly help you determine if the celebrity chosen fits your brand well based upon the reaction from consumers.
Take into consideration that in order for your celebrity endorsement to be successful the celebrity must be attractive, credible and have a meaningful association with your brand. Solange and the Diesel +EDUN collaboration is a great example of a successful celebrity endorsement.
A cultural fair and summit was produced by Viacom Network (i.e. BET |VH1| MTV) on February 21st, 2013 based on their mission to create a platform to connect VIACOM’s staff to a wealth of cultural information and help enhance the development and productivity of its executives and members. Adiree used the platform to provide visitors with a sneak peek, of its upcoming showroom, featuring African Fashion Designers.
Adiree used the platform to educate VIACOM on aspects related to its Africa Fashion Week and showcased emerging designers from Africa in a more intimate and direct manner. A sales opportunities were provided by the company which gave African fashion designers an opportunity to show and sell their products to 1200 of VIACOM’s employees and senior level executives. Africa Fashion Week designers, like Farai Simoyi and MABM designs were apart of this great event and conducted Africa Fashion Week runway giveaways! Let’s divulge one luck winner shall we?
Announcing the winner of Zimbabwean/British designer Farai Simoyi’s giveaway… and the winner is Candace Shaw!!
Click here to see what Ms. Shaw won!
