E-Commerce: Social Shopping Take Precedence in 2012

This post was inspired by Macala Wright of FMM.

As we get more savvy online, people get smarter offline, and technologies become more intelligent; we have increasing numbers of new start-ups that are here to cater to everyone’s needs. In today’s world “niche” needs are pretty much met.

Mulu.Me – Launched in December 2011, Mulu is a social sharing platform for sharing the things you love that makes the world a better place at the same time. Mulu, allows users to make product recommendations, ask for suggestions and earn money for themselves or a social cause they want to support.

Buyosphere – Founded by digital pioneer and author, Tara Hunt, Buyosphere is Quora for fashion, interiors and retail, seeking to pick up where the Google product search falls off.

Pinterest – Pinterest is probably one of the most talked-about technologies on the web these days, one may even say users are addicted to their platform. For bloggers, we highly recommend learning how to create post titles and tags for your Pinterest posts. First start with the name of the board, then make sure your content on that board reflect the theme of what you’re showing. Do this for all of your content here.

“There is no direct path to online consumer sales. Consumers desire to broadcast and share their lives, and their web behaviors therefore strike out on a non-linear path to purchase. The whole concept of social commerce is now realizing that every platform and network is a potential lead for an online sale.” As a retailer, all you have to do is supply images and ideas in a way that’s accessible to the online user/consumer and sparks their desire to do all this work for you. In one swift addition to a consumer “pin, post or add,” retailers can build brand awareness, increase online engagement and create direct links to product pages that lead to purchase conversions.

Read Macala Wright’s full article here.

You’re Invited: 2011 Retail Camp Los Angeles Conference

I am very EXCITED to attend Retail Camp this weekend – a Saturday and Sunday all-day event. Retail Camp is a conference with workshops and presentations focused on digital media.  Topics include  marketing, social media, launching collections directly to consumers, public relations, manufacturing, eCommerce, mobile marketing, augmented reality and QR Codes. The panel of speakers and topics covered are exciting, influential and I’m sure I’ll be absorbing more than I may be able to handle. The list of participants are growing on a daily basis - online shopping sites such as Nasty Gal Clothing, ModCloth, to Advanstar Communications, and Vogue to name a few.

The program looks really interesting – lots of discussions, demos, and workshops!

Will you be there? Get in touch.

How the Fashion Magazine Industry Will Prevail

Fashion, it’s an amazing industry. period. The publication sector will prove to be more victorious this new  year. After collectively losing nearly a quarter of their ad pages in 2009, fashion magazines are gearing up to makeup for the previous year and exceed revenue expectations this coming year. Companies are well prepared, “Fashion magazines are clearly trying to corner their own share of the ever-expanding online and mobile advertising markets.”

“Digital platforms are increasingly attractive to advertisers who demand accountability and want compelling, innovative programs that make consumers pay attention,” InStyle Publisher Connie Anne Phillips explained.

Interactive Shopping

Stylefeeder’s (a personal shopping engine. Acquired by Time Inc. in January) technology will be used to power InStyle Boutique, a Flash-based virtual department store (see above) that will run for five weeks alongside the launch of the magazine’s September issue in mid-August.

Image Recognition & Location-Based Technology

W Magazine will launch three interactive, mobile-based promotions — two tied to New York Fashion Week and a third that will roll out in October. Another promotion, tentatively titled “Foursquare at Fashion Week,” is based upon Jimmy Choo’s London-based Catch-a-Choo campaign.

Read the full story here.

Online Optimization: Fashion Videos

The fashion industry’s online presence across various mediums seems to be gaining momentum.”Susan Etlinger of The Altimeter Group feels that all retailers and fashion brands must:

• Talk to their customers; consumers expect dialogue with the brands they care about.
• Need to be able to shift between channels — web, mobile, print, broadcast — with a moment’s notice in order to keep a constant stream of communication with customers.
• Maintain a consistent brand experience, no matter where the customers are or what they’re doing. To reach this new empowered consumer, retailers now need to think in three dimensions: social, cross-channel and local.

The use of video is an evolving medium that deserves your attention. I believe we will see an increase of brands, both large or small and wholesale or retail creating fashion films throughout 2011.”

Elegant and highly effective ways +
integrating content & commerce = engagement
into sales

Fashion video’s are always more compelling, you have the ability to tell a story with direction, film/camera techniques, music, and narrative. I believe that helps any designer, brand, product, or wholesaler better communicate their vision.

The Ralph Lauren
4D show in New York City

Monoreno
Catalog fashion video

thank you Mashable

Extra! Extra! Watch All About It: NEW YORK FASHION WEEK SEPT 9-16: Digital Schedules Are Out!

Spring 2011 Collection‘s are ready to be revealed and the schedules are OUT! (below)

Great to see “Digital Schedules” out! The social space only better shares to the public about your vision, looks, and well, let’s get one thing straight, it’s an organic form of communicating to the world what you have to present. SO WHY NOT?! One might argue it be madness to ignore the opportunity for transparency with your brand via the online domain. To put it another way showing people (journalists, buyers, fashion gurus, and plain you and I who are interested in this crazy industry)  you’re work builds awareness, and that leads (not for all) to loyalty and sooner or later monetization, as a result from connecting with customers. I mean, there is a superabundance of online shopping sites carrying  high-end designers/labels  nowadays . Uhh, and why do you think bloggers are seated front row?! Yea …

Still others not quite ready to take the plunge might insist that digital strategies of this sort may cause a lack of control by the brand, perhaps things may get communicated wrong and spread like a virus through the blogosphere, etc. My opinion is THAT this could happen, but I would assume the probability of a situation arising would have already been discussed during project preparations… also, who knows, you might learn a thing or two about how people feel by their responses. Not that you need to listen but, maybe for the next project it could/should be a consideration. It’s a debate …

Enough of my rambling, the digital schedule is below, YIKES!

September 9

• There are no digital events on this day

September 10

• 10am
  BCBGMAXAZRIA Live Stream, Official Designer Website
• 8PM
  Academy of Art University Live Stream,Official Designer Website

September 11

• 1pm
  Prabal Gurung Live Stream, Official Designer Website

September 12

• 1pm
  DKNY Live Stream, Official Designer Facebook
• 8pm
  Tommy Hilfiger, Theatre
• 8pm
  Tommy Hilfiger Live Stream, Official Designer Facebook

September 13

• 11am
  Carlos Miele Live Stream, Official Designer Website
• 2pm
  Donna Karen Live Stream,http://www.donnakaran.com/
• 6pm
  Betsey Johnson Live Stream, Official Designer Website
• 7pm
  Perry Ellis Live Stream, Official Designer Website

September 14

• 10am
  Badgley Mischka Live Stream,http://www.badgleymischka.com/

September 15

• 10am
  Michael Kors Live Stream, Official Designer Website
• 6pm
  Anna Sui Live Stream, Official Designer Website

September 15

• Isaac Mizrahi Live Stream, Official Designer Website
  

Journalism Debate: Burson-Marsteller + Howard Rheingold + ELLE’s Joe Zee and Kate Lanphear

How is online media not only changing, but also transforming different industries and disciplines? I’ve been reading articles, surveys, studies and engaging in conversations about this very topic to the point, I had to share my thoughts and some interesting findings with you! I’ll just share two plus an ELLE article

First, Burson-Marsteller, one of the largest full service public relations agencies in the world conducted a survey with 115 senior journalists from all across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to get insight on how the digital revolution is changing the publishing field.  Here’s what I thought was pretty interesting…

Read the whole survey here

The last graph on the left reveals expert journalists believe blogs are the most damaging medium to the journalism field. I can agree with that to some degree, I guess it depends on the context. Which leads me to what I want to share next. Howard Rheingold, is a writer, teacher, an online instigator and just happens to be my previous professor at UC Berkeley! Here he shares how people need to become critics of information that’s presented to them – “crap detection 101“- when you read something online you really don’t have any guarantee that it’s accurate. As more blogs are created and more publishing platforms are developed (for example, tumblr and posterous), depending on the information we’re seeking we should question, who are the authors and question their credibility.

____________________________________

Elle’s Joe Zee and Kate Lanphear Have Different Views on Fashion Bloggers

Zee said last night:

“You know, Tavi, like her or don’t like her, she’s 13 — whether she even really writes it herself, the idea that she has gotten all this attention, it’s because of the Internet, not because of anything else. [At Elle] we’re talking about people who have really done this their entire lives, who’ve really covered fashion, who really understand fashion … understand the history of fashion, can critique it from a point of view, [can] actually relay it back to something they’ve experienced and understand. I don’t think Tavi even knows what happened five years ago. She has every right to [post] on the Internet, she has every right to have the following she has … everybody can follow her and find her creative or funny or quirky or inspiring, but the idea is there are people here [at Elle] who do know the history and I think that Anne [Slowey] stresses this. It’s absolutely true: if you don’t know what you’re talking about, then do you really have the credibility to talk about it?”

Elle style director Kate Lanphear sees things differently. She countered:

“But there’s also something beautiful about these fresh voices that can say something that maybe sometimes someone who does have a lot of credibility misses, or they see it through a really fresh eye. I think that’s the debate that is going on in our industry full-stop, because we don’t want to discredit years and years of experience and hard work and paying your dues and learning about what we do day to day, but there is something really beautiful about all of these really fresh perspectives that come out of the Internet.”

What do you think?

Social Media is Everywhere. So is Branding.

I was inspired to write about this topic after a recent exchange with a Brand Strategy professor, which concerned my interest in Brand Marketing and various strategies to best market my brand, me!

Branding is the fundamental piece in your marketing communications that raises awareness and builds your relationships. Simply put, your brand is your personality/ lifestyle. And social media is an organic definition of “conversation”, a two-way communication between people.

Elevate your brand with social media, it is the world’s best platform to build these relationships.

And social media sites (social networks, news, blogs, microblogging, message boards, social gaming, podcasts, RSS, etc) offer so much information and access! In that, if you’re trying to reach a specific market of people, go where those people are! A valuable tool brands have now is they can listen to conversations online and interact with conversations that involve their brand. The trends continue to shift control to the hands of individuals and communities instead of corporations, so companies can’t afford to be invisible. Instead, they should be visible and participate in communities to generate more exposure, increase traffic to website, build new business partnerships and bring in new qualified leads.

You can start by using the advanced search features that help to narrow down (target) people to specific profiles to find people you want to talk to. Next, join in on the conversation, be helpful and well, empathetic. For example, Twitter. It’s a powerful search tool. It gives you “current” conversations in real time search results. Now, as a brand you want to come up on those searches and maybe even help out people, solve a problem for them

Here are some dominant niche sites:

• Biznik : B2B sales – lots of partnership opportunities here, maintain presence and you’ll get pitches
• Fast Pitch Networking- platform for distributing press releases – primary goal is to add value to their business
• Plaxo- 40 millions similar to linkedin – similar to facebook. community just as big as linkedin. big earlly mover advantage – they have no competitiors

Thanks for the great ideas, Social Media Magic.

Above social media city image from here, thanks.

Social Relationships: Online and Offline

Over the weekend, I was interviewing for a social media position and during the interview my interviewee brought up something interesting as he was explaining objectives of his team:

He said, “think about it … how many conversations do you have with people you have strong relationships with as opposed to people you don’t have a solid relationship with. If we are looking to develop deep brand-user relationships, the approach should be no different than what you do in your personal life.”

It’s so true that people tend to forget about the dynamics of human relationships. For example, it’s the same idea as reuniting with your best friend after a couple years and consistently having the same feeling of trust, warmth and comfort. How can brands tap into this concept and generate similar feelings of trust, warmth and comfort with their consumers? One way to increase level of engagement and deepen relationships is through social CRM (customer relationship management) – Jeremiah Owyang further explores the topic here…).

We have resources at the tip of our finger tips now, how are companies and brands going to use the information to respond, react, and offer what the consumers want and need.

First things first, it’s always a great idea to “evaluate your current situation at your company, then draw up which business needs need to be tackled first.” Of course, the size of your company is also going to effect the order of what needs are most important.  For example, a larger corporation may need to allocate time and resources to explaining and on-boarding other internal members, or departments.

My Social Media Story: Personal Branding

My Thoughts Recently,

Online social media has been consuming me – not that it wasn’t before – I’m obsessed … As I prepare to leave school and enter the work force, more and more of my time is spent online job hunting. Depending on the situation, the persons age and their goal it’s accurate to say everyone has their own social media story. Personally, social media has been a huge benefit for my job search (it can be for you too)!

Leveraging online tools to:

• Access internal contacts and get leads (Twitter and LinkedIn are great! – AS IF you didn’t know this already …) Twitter is a great way to engage in conversations with people you want to work with, LinkedIn is a great resource to find someone who can introduce you to somebody.
• Get background and up-to-date information about companies/people
• Participant online (hence, my blog), show your knowledge/interest about your industry of interest. Of course if you’re keen on entering the online media/communication industries you should definitely be doing this!

This is a learning process, and it doesn’t happen over night. There are SO many tools that personally, I say focus on two or three and see how can you value from these resources.

 

How the Fashion Industry is Gaining Social Success

Just a thought: The word “social” means different things to different people. Some might interpret “How the Fashion Industry is Gaining Social Success” to be about fashion brands that are growing and they’re at the forefront of the industry. Or some (including me) would assume title is about the social success online, how the fashion industry is not only quickly adapting to the changes in the digital landscape, but also coming up with innovative ways to engage with communities globally.

The other day I was at lunch with a friend and introduced her to FourSquare (if you don’t know, READ this) – it is a mobile application that turns your city into a playground – it’s helps you find new ways to explore where you are. You can meet up with you friends, you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places…And here I was thinking that everyone knew about Foursquare

Just a note: I am passionate about fashion, and I am very keen on learning about online/social media – I plan in the future to integrate my personal and professional interests.

Did you ever think:

“the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) and IMG (who produce the shows at the tents in Bryant Park), have also decided to let bloggers populate the front rows, and have established WiFi areas instead of putting the kibosh on their coverage.”

I completely agree:

“Joe Zee, creative director at ELLE Magazine says that just like in most give-and-take relationships, it’s a compromise. “I’ve always been about what the ‘next big thing’ is. Please, I was the one that would help my grandmother put the VCR together when I was little and got a Tivo 15 years ago. People fear what they don’t understand, but trust me, magazines, designers and retailers are getting to understand what social media is faster than they can say ‘that’s fabulous.’”

Read the full article by Hitha Prabhakar (Twitter:@hithaprabhakar), she is a retail industry expert and principal of The Style File Group, a retail consulting firm based in New York City.