How does a small fashion brand create awareness now? Given that you’ve got your product right (and that’s a big given), you also need a strong marketing concept, a compelling tone of voice and an attractive shop window. For many brands this window is now not its website but its social media platform – and in the case of fashion that means Instagram.
As a good PR, even if you haven’t been tasked with looking after a brand’s social media, you need to be aware of how they are managing theirs and how it is performing.
And if it’s not performing, get on their case. It amazes me how many small brands neglect their digital shop windows (no posts for 6 days, no new imagery) and then wondering why they’re not cutting through.
I spoke to the founder and designer of a young New York fashion brand last month that has become a phenomenal success in less than four years. She says she wouldn’t have had that success without Instagram, but it was something that she prioritised. Because a brand, she told me, now has to think of itself as a media company – with interesting visual content coming again and again and again.
So when I look at the feed of a small brand and see that they haven’t posted anything new in six days, I feel for their founder, who is no doubt simultaneously juggling design, manufacture and sales – but in the meantime they have an empty shop window. And the customer is walking on by.
