Fashionably smart: 5 fashion service brands that are smart on social

The Daily Edited

The Daily Edited is Alyce Tran and Tania Lui’s online store, which offers a range of beautiful personalised leather goods and stationery through their label, Edited. To grow the brand further, they decided to sponsor an Instagram post created by a blogger with more than 250,000 followers. 

“We approached Elle Ferguson to feature two of our products.  She posted one evening last year, and that night, we received an order every two to three minutes for a period of five hours.  We also gained around 600 new followers on our Instagram,” says Tran.

The lesson

Tran suggests aligning with other businesses or personalities that are targeting the audience you’d like to reach.

“Don’t be afraid to cross promote other brands that won’t affect your market. We’ve learnt a lot through collaborating with other small businesses, and particularly other women, who sell products to the same audience we try to target. 

“On Instagram, we’ve definitely created an engaged fan base and network for our business.” 

Karen Walker

What do you do when you want to harness the power of a quirky celebrity’s following on social media to promote your brand? Get them to front your latest eyewear campaign. That’s what New Zealand-based designer Karen Walker did with #ToastMeetsKaren. Toast is a rescued Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that wears designer outfits and has more than 160,000 followers on Instagram. Walker said that although she loves it when celebrities wear her designs, she felt that Toast “captures the essence of our brand in a campaign.”

The lesson

Bringing in an unexpected social media “star” – in Walker’s case, a dog – with a story that can integrate well with your business can help you tap into their following. On social media, it pays to have fun with what can be viewed as a “run-of-the-mill” campaign.

Black Milk

Brisbane-based Black Milk credits social media with growing the six-year-old business into a multi-million dollar empire. Constantly sharing with their fans, whom they affectionately call “Sharkies”, including giving them sneak peeks of new releases and getting their opinions – creating a kind of online focus group.

Through this, the brand – which has almost two million fans on Twitter, Facebook and Instragram combined – is engaging with their Sharkies constantly, including them as part of the brand.

The lesson

Sharing authentic sides of your business online can provide a valuable and inexpensive channel to your customers, leading to the possibility of unwavering brand loyalty.

Myer

Myer recently launched their Autumn/Winter 2015 collection inviting all their Myer One loyalty program members to an exclusive runway show featuring Myer ambassadors Jennifer Hawkins and Chris Smith.

Prior to the show, they encouraged fashionistas to use hashtags #MyerFashionLaunch #MyerAW15 pushing their brand onto potential customers through their loyal ones. The combination worked. The next day in store, four of the $500 Arthur Galan printed jumpsuits – the same design worn by Jennifer Hawkins on the catwalk – had been sold.

The lesson

Hand over the social reins to your advocates. Host an event relevant to your industry and encourage customers to tweet and Instagram images using a prominent and visible hashtag. With online orders, include a note to encourage customers to upload images of your products using a hashtag. It’s a great way to build and maintain relationships.

Showpo

Since 2011, Showpo founder Jane Lu used social media to grow into a million-dollar business in its first year.

Lu implemented a simple but effective method to generate “likes” on the Showpo Facebook page: encouraging customers to tag themselves in promotional photos for the chance to win that item, increasing customer engagement on the page*.

The lesson

All small businesses can create engagement on social media through simple online competitions, and by tapping into your customers’ desires to win a product, it’s an inexpensive way to grow your business.