Social Media Club Fashion Panel

Social Media Club Auckland hosted a fascinating panel discussion tonight with fashion retailers relating how they each use social media in business within the fashion industry…

Social Media Club Auckland hosted a fascinating panel discussion tonight with fashion retailers relating how they each use social media in business within the fashion industry.

Billed as "an evening of glamour, style and fashion mixed with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, join in this discussion between NZ’s hottest young labels, main-street retail and our leading fashion communicators."

The panel aimed to cover how the labels are achieving results, the impact of social media on how consumers shop, fashion media in the age of online-social, and what social media can learn from the fashion industry.

I’d been expecting more of a media focus but it was very commerce and retail industry focused; perhaps in the future a panel of fashion industry observers and media would be a fantastic line-up? Questions from the floor seemd to heavily concentrate on the commercial pay-off of social media and how it translated directly to sales dollars. They all had very different takes on social media, but all seemed to agree that Facebook is the majority way still of interacting.

Below: Eleisha Balmer, Brand Manager for Ruby, Anya Merryfield, ‘Brand Wrangler’ for Rose and Thorne, Sarah Marks of Minx Shoes, and Mo Kheir, Branding & Industrial Designer for I Love Ugly.

Eleisha Balmer said that advertising is less important now than PR and promotions through brand ambassadors and brand partnerships to leverage their databases. "We use social media to get to know what our customer base wants" she says, of the 17,000-strong RUBY Facebook fanbase. "It’s important to listen." The majority of women research their purchase online before they come in to their 8 stores. "Facebook is our biggest tool. It acts as a real-time News Feed. Our Facebook links directly to our Twitter, so they get the same information." She said they use Google Analytics to track where customers buying online have come from online. "Everyone’s a blogger these days; the need for really strong online media is evident for us at the moment." And what’s next? A webstore accessible on smart phones and international retailing that’s as strong as the ASOS model – we need to step up our game in New Zealand.

Mo Kheir, Branding & Industrial Designer for I Love Ugly, spoke next on the success of the (men’s fashion) brand that in only 18 months has gone around the world and is sold in 60 stores. "Our brand strategy is Product plus Talk" he explained. "It’s like going to a movie. It’s the Experience that leads up to the Product." The Product is the garments themselves and the editorial; the Talk is taking Product to social media. "Each platform has its own language" said Mo, whose goal is "achieving sophisticated simplicity." "We put a reblog button on product pages so our custmers do the marketing for us. They do my job for me so I’m just chillin’ all day. Watching movies" he added, laughing.

Anya Merryfield has been at Rose and Thorne, the year-old lingerie company risen from the ashes of Bendon redundancies, for just three months now. She sees the way they do social media as a "Non-revolutionary Revolution"; doing logical things that no-one else is doing." As Rose & Thorne is stocked at The Warehouse’s 70 stores and e-store it has great national coverage but little to no customer service, so their social media "is our retail experience; our Twitter is our retail staff and Facebook is like our Store Manager." "We’re not out to get maximum Likes, we want maximum comments. My role is customer service; to make people feel special and listened to."

Below: Everyone had their heads down on their phones but they weren’t being rude – they were just Tweeting the talk!