1 FASHION & SOCIAL NETWORKS HOW TO SURF THE WEB'S NETWORKS o help fashion brands develop on the Internet, the Fédération Française du Prêt à Porter Féminin, in partnership with Ebuzzing, We Are Social and Fashionmag.com, organized a conference on 7 December 2011 titled "Fashion & Social Networks". The goal was to better understand the potential of social media in brand development strategy. Participants: Frédéric Montagnon, Ebuzzing Sandrine Plasseraud, We Are Social Pierre-Etienne Boilard, MenInvest Media With contributions from: Constance Smith, Lacoste David Legrand, Beaumanoir Group Axel Dutreil, The Kooples "With major changes in the fashion system over the past 10 years, new practices have appeared: the need for an attractive product and the concepts of creativity and expertise. The product must mirror this desire to create impulse buys". These were the opening remarks by Jean-Pierre Mocho, President ofthe Fédération Française du Prêt à Porter Féminin. By stimulating the imagination while still provoking desire, every brand can benefit from these consumer expectations. And the web, with its infinite possibilities, has revolutionized fashion brand communication. Now, to create desire brands have a choice of tools that is sometimes difficult to understand. The Internet's rapid growth in 2010, with 9% in value of women's ready-to-wear purchases, gives consumers new ways to access brands (finding information, sharing experiences, reselling and more). Mr Mocho continued, "Viral communication, and particularly social networks, by increasing information sources both in diversity and number, have considerably modified the relationship between brands and consumers". T
6
Embed
CR Conférence Mode et Réseaux Sociaux décembre 2011 UK
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
8/2/2019 CR Conférence Mode et Réseaux Sociaux décembre 2011 UK
present in social media. You only haveto look at the amount of circulating
content. In 2004, when Frédéric
Montagnon launched OverBlog (since
sold), daily published content on social
media was the same as in the "Petit
Robert" dictionary. In 2008 internauts
began publishing on their own - the
equivalent of an encyclopaedia. And in
2011, content was the same size as a library! According to the Ebuzzing Director, this meansthat if brands want to be seen, they must create content to become part of the discussions.
And this content, he explained, must not be too basic, nor too exclusive, or the brand won't
last. It's a far cry from television advertising campaign content, for example, which is
generally pretty heavy handed. "Brand placement depends on the type of message".
For the most part, fashion has a strong presence in social media. Currently it's the third topic
of conversation, after politics (surely because of the upcoming presidential elections) and
high tech. It's responsible for 4% of content. That may not seem like much, but in fact it's a
lot, according to Mr Montagnon.
He maintains that it's important and even fundamental to analyze how information is
dispersed. He identifies three phases. The first one is content creation by influencers
(bloggers, etc) who are trustworthy. The second phase is the popularization or re-
publication. And the third is amplification, or "buzz" as it's called. This is when people count.
If this phase is successful, other people will follow. This step doesn't depend so much on the
audience, but rather on the quality of the message and its capacity for re-transmission.
Pierre-Etienne Boilard
MenInvest Medias
In the opinion of this media specialist who represents internet sites and works with
magazines such as "L’Officiel", "Jalouse" and "L’Optimum", an information quasi-revolution
has taken place the last few years. "We've gone from information handled by journalists to
information handled by journalists and bloggers. Today with social networks, each one of us
relays information. At the same time, the technological evolution has also transformed the
situation. There was a simplification and then a multiplication of publishing tools for blogs,
8/2/2019 CR Conférence Mode et Réseaux Sociaux décembre 2011 UK
Constance Smith listed five factors for success. First, a Community Manager must be in
place. "Someone dedicated to content is required," she insisted. "Someone who will create
specific content for each platform, if there are more than one. It's also important to follow
the content of different networks, and be personally responsible for the content. It's key to
set up a solid international coordination, with both global and local messages. Today, forexample, Facebook allows you to geo-localize messages". Finally, it's necessary to integrate
social networks into the brand's advertising and sites.
She also underscored the importance of watching what's happing in different platforms and
the social network universe itself. Lacoste's Community Manager ended by revealing an
added value to integrate, "it's important to interact with fans to be able to really visualize
how the brand affects them".
David LegrandBeaumanoir Group
David Legrand makes a clear distinction between the distribution groups that he represents
in the Beaumanoir Group and brands. "The Beaumanior Group is a retailer with hundreds of
stores, including 500 Cache Cache boutiques in France. For a distributor, the marketing
conversation happens mostly in the stores and not in the social networks. Around the end of
2007 and beginning of 2008 we started to pay attention to the development of social
networks, and the phenomenon was integrated into the Group's digital platform which had
been created for e-commerce".
Mr Legrand also pointed out the
difference between the content in
comments from brand fans on Facebook
and from label fans. The later are
generally prolonging the buying
experience. For example, they
photograph themselves in the clothes
they just bought. "They contribute more
regularly than those on the brand sites.
We notice that often there is a gap
between what consumers do with your brand and the image you want it to have. If I have
one piece of advice to give, it's to be as natural as possible. Don't idealize your image. Our
initial reason for being on Facebook, which is the only network we use, was to extend our
service, meaning the consumers' experience. It was only afterwards that we wanted to work
on the brand image. But the brands that win will be those that know how to create a real
identity, especially using social networks. That means having a budget available. "In
distribution groups the directors are first and foremost ROIists. Their priority is a return on
8/2/2019 CR Conférence Mode et Réseaux Sociaux décembre 2011 UK