How 9 Of The Coolest And Biggest Fashion Brands Rock Social Media

The world of fashion is about as fast-paced as you would expect. New lines keep coming out, and new fashion companies spring up all over the place.

Some companies in fashion and e-commerce are showing potential and are most definitely ‘up and coming’. We thought we would take a look at their social media activities to see what they are up to.

We also reviewed some more established fashion giants to see what they have done with the magic that is social media.

Let’s have a look at how these fashion brands rock social media.

Kovert is a truly different kind of company in the fashion world. A wonderful cross between wearable tech and the clothes that people buy to look good in. That’s the company and its product in nutshell.

The product is a device that can be fitted into designer jewellery which alerts you to when your smartphone needs your attention. It buzzes when an important call comes through, or a text that you’ve been waiting for.

Essentially, it’s a PA that screens all your smartphone activity, but it can be fitted into jewellery.

Kovert is fun and cool (which is is partly helped by the CEO, who is, well, fun and cool) and this comes across in their Twitter stream. It’s all very Zen, and fits perfectly with the idea of mindfulness and presence that the tech and fashion crossover will help with. Frequent tweeting and a consistent focus on the Kovert ‘way’ is helping to build a lot of engagement.

When it comes to Instagram, there is an obvious attempt to post images that show the products the company has in use, all beautifully shot and meant to engage potential customers.

Key takeaway: Convey a strong branding message through all your tweets and you’ve got a solid Twitter account that will continue to grow. With Instagram, show the products in action to engage new customers.

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Now, here is a good one. It thinks of itself as Tinder, ‘but for shoes’ and allows users to swipe through pairs of shoes until they find a pair they like. Aimed squarely at the fashion-conscious women who just don’t have time (darling) for real world shopping, It has been incredibly successful in the couple of years since startup.

What’s equally as impressive as the numbers is the masterful usage of Facebook. It has truly capitalised on the platform’s exposure and is using some of the best Facebook strategies to bring in the fans.

One of the best things it does is use images carefully to pull on buyer’s emotions.

The service is about finding the best pair of shoes for an impromptu weekend break to New York, for example, and there are plenty of photos of such gorgeous footwear to whet the user’s appetite. And no pictures of models.

The header is typically colourful and shows a selection of shoes that look ‘swipeable’ and updates are fast and frenetic, perfectly matching the fashion vibe.

On Instagram, Stylect never show the model wearing the product. Sometimes this can be difficult for a fashion brand. Stylect gets away with this by just showing the bottom half of the model, focusing on the wonderful shoes that they make. It has a great impact and means that they have a wonderful Instagram account.

Key takeaway: Strong imagery showing the product only, and a fast pace leads to fashion social media brilliance.

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An excellent idea. Hire the latest dresses online through this company at up to 90% off the retail price. The company is doing very well, having raised substantial funding. It has many fans and a Twitter presence that is very healthy.

On top of the Twitter stream is a very sophisticated header that shows that the company has thought carefully about the visual style it wants to create. They’ve taken note of the fact that simple and clean means a Twitter header that gets noticed and engaged with. If you’re working on your header right now, this could be one to think about emulating.

The company rents out dresses by all kinds of fashion houses. This gives them the license to fill their Twitter stream with hundreds of photos of celebs wearing the dresses. Mixed in are some high-quality images of the publicity rounds the company indulges in.

In short, it seems like the perfect weekend fashion stream. Champagne and parties. It’s a lifestyle thing.

On Instagram, GMD works hard to show the lifestyle, but also some behind-the-scenes photos of their staff and clients enjoying renting the outfits and having fun in the office. It adds a little warmth to the brand and increases engagement.

Key takeaway: Capitalise on the lifestyle your audience aspires to and show it on your social. On Instagram, use behind-the-scenes photos to boost engagement.

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Another intriguing startup that has certainly managed to make waves in the world of fashion. The site sends packages of clothing to men based on predefined tastes. The company contacts you after you have filled out a profile. Then you have a discussion with a personal stylist and a trunk of clothes (literally an old-fashioned trunk, rather cool) arrives. You wear the clothes you want, and a truck comes to take the rest away.

It managed half a million in the first round of funding and is a company to watch in the word of fashion.

On the Facebook page there is a mix of product photos (75% of the content) and updates on music and style reviews. Again, it’s a lifestyle approach. Also there are weekly columns created for the Facebook feed by the Chapar team. The stream is quite sticky and engaging. It gives plenty of news content that entices more purchases (‘Ask for this in the next trunk!’) and teases every new line of clothing the company manages to bring on board.

Although The Chapar doesn’t make their clothing, on Facebook they look like they do. This is achieved by grabbing the audience with news, weekly content and gorgeous product photos, all tied into a lifestyle feel.

On Instagram that same feel is continued. It shows lots of people using the products that they sell, and the entire Instagram account looks like something out of Middle England. It just taps into the London feel that the company is trying to spread, and it is perfect branding.

Beautiful imagery, and well-shot photos, as well as the odd celebrity or two. And David Beckham.

Key takeaway: Deliver plenty of content that helps the audience imagine itself using your product, and keep them engaged with teasers.

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We saved the best for last. This company is huge. They raised nearly £200 million in funding. Having an online presence to die for is one thing, but to get the job done so brilliantly is another entirely. FarFetch finds boutique fashion stores all over the world, really independent places, and then delivers the clothes in one space online. It is an incredibly simple idea but one that has made the company very successful.

The best way to describe their Twitter presence is ‘masterful’. The company knows that it’s entire reason for existence centres around delivering independent clothing that you simply cannot get to unless you use them.

So the stream is full of two types of images. The first is the product, enticing the audience with stuff they didn’t even know existed. The second type of imagery conveys the fashion lifestyle, from NY Fashion Week to on-the-street photos with Beyonce’s stylist.

It’s the perfect fashion Twitter feed. Again, golden rules are followed. You’re a retailer, so show the product. Then, show the lifestyle that the product belongs to.

This good work continues on the company’s Instagram account. Hundreds of images from around the world, some that you couldn’t possibly locate, show people wearing the clothes that are just within a few clicks reach. It works very well because every single image is professionally created (they don’t go in for Behind the Scenes shots) and are always focused on selling the international global lifestyle. When you think about the unique selling point here, that they find clothes from around the world and bring them to you via your computer, it all makes perfect.

Key takeaway: Use imagery heavily on Twitter. It brings twice as much engagement as link-only tweets. On Instagram make your images the stars.

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A huge powerhouse in the world of fashion, and relying on a single fragrance to bring about its prominence many years ago, Chanel is now synonymous with fashion itself. The group has created some iconic products, all of them focus on a simplistic and sophisticated approach to style and taste.

This fashion house is so classic and iconic it has been linked to Marilyn Monroe (who famously wouldn’t wear anything but her Chanel fragrance to bed). It is part of the culture, rather than just the industry itself. That said, it has an absolutely first class Twitter account, doing everything it possibly can to stay ahead of the game with this particular social media platform.

What can the average business learn from it? Well, every single tweet on the page has either an image or a video attached to it. This is a fashion house that knows image is everything in the industry, and we are talking about high-gloss, high budget videos that deserve their own trailers.

On the Instagram account video is king too. They use as many opportunities as possible to include videos here. It means a much more dynamic and exciting approach to Instagram. It’s very engaging.

In case you don’t have a budget to do this kind of thing, it is also a good idea to group together sets of images and ideas that belong together. There can be a selection of black and white photos, for example, that changes further down the page into a group of cartoon images. Everything is grouped together, and it’s an interesting way of building out the account.

While not every business can even hope to compete with this, it is nice to see that Chanel is showing other fashion houses how to work social media. It is appropriate that it uses video so much because video gains engagement on social media.

The rest of us? We should just follow the fashion.

Key takeaway: Use high-quality video a lot to build engagement hugely.

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Gucci is a place of effortless style. This fashion house designs a lot of stuff and is present at most major fashion shows, but it’s real brilliance lies in the small accessories, including handbags, that it produces. The presence online is an interesting one. We think they have a slightly clunky website, but maybe they’re switched on fully to social media, because looking at their Facebook page they seem to have it locked down.

We have seen attractive headers before, but this one is just simply beautiful. To add to it, Gucci has decided to fill its Facebook stream with high quality, incredibly attractive photos and plenty of gorgeous videos.

If we were to look at this and give advice to up and coming fashion companies with Gucci being a guide, we would simply say just do what Gucci does and pack the Facebook feed with as much attractive content as possible.

Beyonce likes the page (sorry, we just had to say that) but we venture that she likes the site content more than anything else. This is content rich stuff, and a lesson to every business with a social media presence. There is a lot so see and do here and the content is simply begging to be clicked on. From stories about ancient maps to profiles on individual designers. From clips of fashion shows to the products themselves. It’s like walking into an online museum, with the world’s’ most fashionable gift shop on the way out.

A truly inspirational Facebook presence.

The same situation is there on Instagram as well. It’s all very attractive and stunning to watch. Sprinkled among the beautiful pictures of people wearing the stunning clothes is the odd video or two. Each of the videos is incredibly well shot and looks like it cost millions to make. And it probably did.

Key takeaway: Go mad, give your audience everything you possibly can with a rich and detailed seam of content.

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This company (and man) are all about effortless style. We are talking suits that make any man look good, and a range (Polo) that has become synonymous with a college preppie look that seems simply timeless.

There is a lot that Ralph Lauren does in social media that shows it has a huge team of people behind the various platforms and accounts. One of the best things about Ralph Lauren online is the Twitter feed. This may be managed by a hundred people in a large and swanky office, but it looks so good and follows plenty of Twitter rules of engagement.

What does the average Ralph Lauren wearer want from the company? It wants glamour. So witness the endless shots of fashion runways and celebrities who are wearing the clothing. There’s also plenty of videos, because Ralph Lauren obviously has sales targets and wants to engage its audience. It does it effortlessly, with genuinely interesting videos that show a slice of the Lauren life.

Like the best fashion houses online (even the smaller ones) the company knows it’s important to sell a lifestyle. The company also does the interaction thing on Twitter well, encouraging the audience to get involved. It’s textbook Twitter stuff.

Meanwhile, and with over 2 million followers on Instagram, Ralph Lauren is showing no signs of letting up, with some incredibly beautiful photos of incredibly beautiful people. Parties, awards, and just models wearing the clothes that are worth thousands, it all makes perfect Instagram sense and is neatly delivered in high quality, glossy images as a complete lifestyle.

Key takeaway: On Twitter, interact as much as you can, and sell the fashion ideal. On Instagram, show beautiful lives being lived. It’s what the audience wants.

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This is a distinctly British fashion house, over 160 years old and still very much setting the trend. For a while their brand was all about The Check, but that’s changed into a new phase. Now a lot of celebrity endorsements and plenty of high profile shows and events really help the brand become synonymous with style and sophistication.

The Facebook feed follows suit, with some excellent content that makes it a joy to visit. It simply stops you from going anywhere else and has plenty of interesting features. There is a huge reliance on video, which is right because of the visual nature of their products, and the need to show the clothes being worn and admired at fashion shows around the world.

There is a glossy feel to the Facebook page, which again fits in with the international, fashion magazine style branding that Burberry has created.

The company also has a strong link with Apple, through its Music service. This makes it the first of the large fashion houses to feature original artists singing in London, and fitting in neatly with a London theme.

On Instagram we found plenty more photos and images that show the truly visual explosion that Burberry has become. Plenty of fashion show images as well, and music videos or at least videos of musicians playing and singing. It’s an extension of the Facebook content, but it all fits perfectly into the Instagram feed.

So there is lots of exciting content, and the keyword here seems to be variety. More content rich stuff, and again a huge focus on video to boost that engagement. But the big difference here between Burberry and say, Ralph Lauren? The fact that Burberry uses music videos too, full-length ones, to give a truly magazine style experience.

Key takeaway: Make the Facebook feed a place you want to spend time on. That means new content regularly, and a wide variety of content too. On Instagram, use video and photos to keep pushing that brand.

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‘If you have huge budgets you can pay for massive video campaigns and plaster them all over Facebook.’

Girl Meets Dress are doing exactly what Ralph Lauren is doing, just on a smaller scale. The company is selling the lifestyle and brand through the imagery it shows on Twitter. Remember, the best customer for Girl Meets Dress is the girl who needs a party dress like, yesterday. This kind of fun, fast-paced lifestyle is there in the image. Ralph Lauren is all about celebrity, high fashion and sophistication. This kind of lifestyle is there in the imagery.

You get the picture.

If you have a social media account do what these guys are all doing (just on different scales). Fill them with sticky content that is rich and deep. The kind of stuff people want to click on, find out more about.

Gucci is the exemplar here, but most businesses don’t have the budget to do it like Gucci. However, The Chapar is doing something similar, just on a smaller scale. The concept is still there.

The big takeaways here for any company, not just a fashion company? That’s easy. Use video and imagery as much as you can. It will get clicked through twice as much as standard link content.

And then, ensure that you keep people interested with a variety of content styles and media. You may not be able to hook up with Apple Music, but you could create a weekly series like The Chapar did.

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