kcb206xinyao2015-blog

[kcb206xinyao2015-blog]

Case Study: How the Fashion Industry is working with Social Media

Introduction

In the digital society of 21st century, it is impossible to deny the power of social media have been effectively impacted how we are usually living. According a study reported that thousands of people in the world are using different social media platforms to communicating and receive information, and the top users registered social media were Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even Instagram and Tumblr (Osmeloski, 2014).  Those popular social media have been transformed the way our entire society functions, taking forth new ways to interact with our life (Weber. 2012). Relate to Fuchs said that “Users who upload photos and images, write wall posting and comments, send email to their contacts, accumulate friends or browse other profiles on Facebook, constitute an audience commodity that is sold to advertisers.” (Fuchs 2014, 107). However, in the last decade, social media have been larger used in different workplaces of industries. For example, there was one particular industry have been successfully incorporate with social media: fashion. In addition, related to the idea of ‘neoliberalism’ from Marwick, she said that “an effective neoliberal subject attend to fashions, is focused on self- improvement, and purchases goods and services to achieve self-realization.” (Marwick, 2013)  

In this case study, the fashion online shopping website ASOS.com was the example to investigate how the fashion industry is embracing social media and how the ASOS website establishes its branding value via the social media.      

Description

People do purchase activity in everyday life, but as online shopping phenomena have becoming popular and convenient, more and more people are enthusiast for online shopping, especially the young people.

ASOS.com is a global online fashion and beauty store website which based in the UK (its launch in June 2000) and has fast become one of largest online fashion retailer in Britain. Also, it offer free shipping promotion to 234 countries in worldwide and even have developed other language website for UK, US, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Russia and China.  As result, referred a statistics, ASOS has attracting 29.5million users per month and selling over 65,000 products from a mixture of own-label, global and local brands (ASOS Handbook 2014).

However, looking for various similar online fashion shopping websites, ASOS had created special characteristic which can engage with customers and made different than others. In 2007, ASOS developed the editorial market, with the launch of their first own monthly magazine, targeted toward their female customer. Moreover, alongside that magazine, ASOS also run a 'Daily Newsfeed' online blog to share posts about style, beauty and celebrities.

Certainly, ASOS website was fully know their target market is forward young people and their marketing ideas must be innovative and fresh to reach and influence their target clientele. For customers, they can links to each of their social media platforms can be found at the bottom of the homepage and visitors are given the option of sharing pictures of items they like on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and Google+ below each product listing.

Therefore, for that reason, ASOS website has invested a lot of efforts to establish strong social media marketing and value, for examples on the three popular social media platforms:  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In the rest of the time, I will further investigate how ASOS.com works via those three platforms.

 Discussion

Facebook

Facebook is one of the most powerful social platforms in the world, launched on 2004 created by Mark Zuckerberg. This is wide size alone is a positive for any business and gives them more opportunities to represent themselves in various ways.

The ASOS Facebook page is currently one of the most popular retail brands on Facebook, with over 3.5 million fans, in comparison with other online retailers such as Boohoo is 2.2 million and Net-a-Porter is 1.3 million. Generally, ASOS Facebook page is more likely to marketing in public. They post daily and use the page to promote new ranges and sales, and promos their blog and online magazine. As they share a post about fashion styles, beauty or celebrities’ outfit, their fan can re-post, comment or ‘Like’ that post. This act is advantage the ASOS’s designers to understands of how client’s perspectives and dressing ideas. Moreover, a recent example was their page event campaign #AsSeenOnMe, asks their customers to share and tag photos of themselves of wearing their ASOS purchases, with the opportunity of being featured in a gallery on the website. This is an effective marketing practice, as it builds a relationship with their customers and increases the customer loyalty.

Twitter

Twitter is an ongoing conversation social media platform (it is created by Jack Dorsey ad launched on 2006), has become widely popular. Unlike Facebook and other social media platforms, where people can choose what to look at on your site, or respond later, Twitter is more "in the moment."

The ASOS’s Twitter is operating differently than their Facebook page; it is more for communication and interactive purposes. So, they have multiple accounts to fit for their different market’s needs. Generally, the main global Twitter page @ASOS has nearly 800,000 followers, in comparison to @Boohoo has 15.5k and @NetAPorter has 24.3k. Obviously, ASOS has putted on a large amount of time and resources are invested into maintaining their Twitter accounts and engaging with other users. Based on the fashion information share on the page, also they are enthusiastically attentive to respond to fans comments and any questions, particularly on their Customer Care account @ASOS_HeretoHelp, which attracts a large response from fans and users. In additional, the main ASOS Twitter page no just post their own sources, they frequently share pictures, fashion information and videos from other outside sources which are appropriate for their target clientele.

Instagram

Instagram was launched on October 6, 2010, just like any other social network, is based around having friends or followers.  On Instagram you might like ‘follow’ photos. In fact, Instagram have strong photo-sharing and the photographs. The users can easy to find some of the most amazing photographs that have ever seen on Instagram.

Unlike their Facebook and Twitter pages, ASOS have given their Instagram account more personal reaction and share fans with a bit of a ‘back of the scenes’, just use Instagram like any other user do. For instances, posted the photos of staff's breakfast or coffee break, their stylist's outfit of the day, and model’s daily outfits. All those shares can bring closely connected with fan’s daily activities, and makes the brand relatable for their fans, as well as providing inspiration for them to shop on the website when they see ASOS products on real people.

Just like I mention above, ASOS’s Instagram is play a role on interaction with fans and share the funny things of the ‘back of scenes’. There may have question of why it is different than Facebook page and Twitter? This is because of their fans are willing to help them do marketing by used hashtag #.

There is in fact the ASOS customers who make more frequent use of the affiliated hashtags and over 1 million images can now be found under #ASOS. Therefore, as with over 3,000 followers on their Instagram account, building a relationship with fans is more useful than marketing their products.

Conclusion

For ASOS, social media is the effective tool for marketing their target customer base of young and trendy individuals. As their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with large amount of followers, there allows them to communicate directly with their fans, helping to build a closer and more personal relationship with their clientele and enabling their customers to have participation. Also, it is useful to develop market research under the high number of followers for their social media accounts, which effective to presence and demonstrates how it can successfully engaging their target market and beneficial for the receive a lot of feedback of products and services.

Overall, social media is changing how people communicate and enrich people’s life. As different genres of social media platforms appeared and have been wide range to use, it is also engage people to connect and share the communication in the worldwide.  

 References

Elisabeth Osmeloski. 2014. " A Marketer’s Guide To Gaining Attention On 12 Top Social Networks." Marketing Land, December 4.  Accessed April 17, 2015. http://marketingland.com/over-20-experts-share-powerful-tips-for-top-social-media-platforms-106380

ASOS annual report handbook 2014. Accessed April 17, 2015. http://www.asosplc.com/~/media/Files/A/ASOS/results-archive/ASOS_Report_2014%20FINAL.pdf

 Fuchs, Christian. 2014. “The Power and Political Economy of Social Media.” In Social Media: An Introduction, 97 – 125. London: Sage Publications.

 Harrison, Weber. 2012. " How the Fashion Industry Is Embracing Social Media." The Next Web, 24 January.  Accessed April 16, 2015. http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/24/how-the-fashion-industry-is-embracing-social-media/

 Marwick, Alice E, (2013). Introduction. In Marwick, Alice E, Status update : celebrity, publicity and branding in the digital age, (pp.1 - 19). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Accessed April 17, 2015. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/olt_material_search_p?p_unit_code=KCB206