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1. Social Media Basics for Fashion Industry
(Asian Edition)
Presented by

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6. Best practices
Brands under section “Best Practices” in this eBook is provided for educational reference only, Salt flavour Ltd. Hong
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3. What to expect
Throughout this ebook, you will learn about the change
in the media landscape and how it affects the fashion
industry in the Asia market. Readers will also find tips
on how to utilize social media for fashion brands, as
well as best practices from around the world.
Enjoy!

4. Why Social?

5. Why social?
One of the biggest mistakes a fashion brand can
make is to think of social media as a cheaper
alternative to market a brand.
Fashion industry heavily relies on word-of-mouth,
because what people wear is naturally meant to be
shared with others. Most women are influenced by
their friends’ or colleagues’ advice on their choice of
fashion and style and they feel good about
purchasing from a brand that creates a positive
association in their mind.
Social media allow fashion brands to activate this
word of mouth. If done right, fashion brands can
turn current customers into advocates (talk about
your brand and products with passion), and their
friends into new customers.
Current customers
Their friends (potential
customers that could be
activated with social
media)

6. The reach
Asia Pacific Internet Users spend most of their time social
networking, of 9.5 hours per day in average.
(Source: Comscore Media Matrix, April 2010)
China alone has more than 420 million Internet users, that
doubles the number of Internet users in the United States.
(Source: Internet World Stats, April 2011)
Video content is extremely popular in Asia, reaching 276
million viewers everyday. With Youtube being the most
popular video site.
(Source: Comscore video matrix, May 2010)

7. The shopping
3 (underlined) out of the top 5 things Asians buy online are
or could be fashion items.
35.3%
27.4% 26.4%
20.8%
14.9%
Clothes Books Shoes A gift Beer

8. Mobile
Fashion brands should consider including mobile into any kind of marketing planning. Compared to
consumers from other regions, their Asian counterparts are obsessed with photo sharing (e.g. in
restaurant, in fashion boutiques etc.) Brands should take full advantage of this behaviour.
More than 400 million people across Asia had access to mobile
Internet in 2010.
(Source: SMAATO)
More than 69% of Asia consumers say they are comfortable with
mobile advertisements.
(Source: Inmobi)

9. Power of Social
Social media is crucial for the Asian market because people are extremely active in sharing, as well
as getting branded information from their peers. It’s the perfect landscape for fashion brands to be in.
Nearly 1 in every 4 Facebook users comes from Asia.
(Source: Comscore)
Compared to other countries, Asian consumers are highly influenced by social media sites during
purchasing decision. 60% use social media to make purchase decisions compared to 42% globally.
(Source: Niesen)
Social media is not commonly used only by younger generation anymore. In Asia, 80% of Internet
users aged 55+ say they use social networking sites.
(Source: Marketing Interactive)

10. Tips to start

11. The amplifier theory
Most brands only start a Facebook page or Weibo account and consider it a jump start on their
social media strategy. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as it may sound to make it have an
impact on consumers.
Being on these channels is a good start, but brands need to give people reasons for being part
of a brand community.
Social channels are like amplifiers. Amplifiers are appreciated only if it’s making a good song
louder. However, what many brands forget is to build this “song” before building the amplifiers.

12. Wrong Approach Integrated Approach
Online Offline
paid paid
+
Brand message 2
Brand message 1
media media
Online Offline
paid paid
media media
Brand
Community
Brand
Community
Online Offline
WOM WOM
Channel strategy is supposed to be one of the most important factors within the overall social media strategy.
It should more or less change the original communication if the brand integrates social media correctly to the
marketing mix. Use the “integrated approach” diagram as reference.

13. Focus
Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, Instagram, Foursquare, Pinterest, and the list goes on
and on. One of the most common mistakes made by brands and agencies is
make they try to set up accounts and pages on as many networks as possible at
the same time, with limited resources. When a brand starts to engage on social
media, marketing team should focus their effort on building the base community
on a core channel, then perhaps expand to other networks at a later stage.
Quality of the content is key!

14. Brand story
Fashion brands have great brand stories.
Before creating any new content for the
community, don’t forget to look into the existing
brand materials that could be re-used online as
fresh content.

15. In-store
Decoration
Whether a fashion brand is in the middle of a
marketing campaign or just a long-term day-to-day
engagement, there should always be something set
up in-store to let consumers know about the online
The amplifier theory
community. Simplest way would be having signs in-
store showing why they should join the community.
Staff
All staff need to know about the online community,
and they should be trained to often remind
customers about it, especially when there’s a
campaign going on.

16. Campaign ideas
Whenever brands think of campaign ideas, they often start with
thinking around giving away products for free. Think bigger and
better! Give your community a chance to experience something
exciting and different and something they really care about (e.g.
backstage access to exclusive fashion shows).

17. Show off
Other than the quality of design and material, fashion is
also about selling a lifestyle. Once a brand finds out
what interests the customers within this lifestyle, all they
need to do is allow their customers to show off among
their peers, who usually have a similar fashion taste and
lifestyle.
Create campaigns, use small prizes, include them in
special events and make them feel special and proud
about sharing stories of your brand!

18. Best practices

19. Victoria’s Secret has long been the biggest
retailer brand community on Facebook. Learn the
3 tactics that made them successful.

20. Behind the scene
Through Facebook and Youtube, Victoria’s Secret
takes its fans behind the scenes, offering them a
unique experience throughout different platforms.
Exclusive values
VS offers Facebook-exclusive deals and events. They
announce special discounts for Facebook fans first, or
allow fans to view livechats with models. These small
“perks” really give people reasons to join and share
their brand community.
Great images
Good images work well on any marketing
communications. However, good images get shared
the most on social media, every single image
Victoria’s Secret posts recruits more fans when
existing fans share the images.
https://www.facebook.com/victoriassecret
http://www.youtube.com/victoriassecret

21. Diesel has a strong brand personality, see what
they’ve done in-store to bring their playfulness to
social media.

22. In-store integration
This is a great example of how social media can be
integrated in-store, bringing offline customers’ experience
online.
Diesel has built an interactive installation in one of their
stores in Spain. This project allows customers to ask their
friends for real-time feedback on the outfit they are trying
on and therefore, increasing word-of-mouth and brand
exposure through their customers’ social network.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P-zA90yI64

23. Other than their famous Twitter account, run by their
“PR girl” Aliza Licht, it’s crucial that brands learn
more about their way of communication to
consumers on Facebook.

24. What DKNY has been doing very well on Facebook is
their 1) quick creative content and 2) real-time posting
of raw-photos.
Great graphic design to celebrate their 500K
fans mark for their Facebook page, showing
great appreciation of their fans’ support.
Instead of taking time to retouch all the photos
before publishing, DKNY posts real-time raw
content to their Facebook community, giving a
personal exclusive touch to these photos makes
viewers feel special.
https://www.facebook.com/DKNY

26. Fully utilize lifestyle content
No matter how big or small a fashion
brand is, there’s always existing content
ready to be edited or localized for being
re-published as fresh content. Marketers
need to be creative and think of new ways
to “recycle” the content.
Instead of talking only about Burberry
products, they localized international
lifestyle content (music, design, TVC
shooting etc.) and uses them on Sina
Weibo (Chinese Microblogging platform)
for the China market.
http://weibo.com/burberry

28. As the UK’s largest online fashion store, their key purpose of ASOS’
communication on social media is to drive traffic to it’s online store.
Asos directs traffic in a cool way by constantly updating the community with latest
looks, Facebook-only offers and fun little campaigns to give away discounts.
https://www.facebook.com/ASOS

30. Adidas is doing a great job at making fans
feel feel like they are an integral part of the
brand. Adidas has launched the “City vs City
challenge” that features people from around
the world wearing brand’s clothing. Online
community is invited to participate by voting
for their favourite styles in different cities.
Users can also create their own lookbook and
share it on all social channels.
http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/
WomensLookBook/Content/Battle/20?
appshare=true&battleId=-1&sid=6445d464-75
12-4375-
ba7a-456d3fced1bd&strCountry_adidascom=
nl&headerType=discreet

31. Conclude
Social media is not a cheaper
marketing alternative to fashion brands.
It is a powerful way to grow business by
activating customers’ word of mouth.
Brands need to dedicate teams to
impress their online communities by
mixing entertaining content, great
visuals, exclusive news, brand stories,
and brand offers on the right channels.

32. about
SALT is a new creative agency, founded by
ex-Ogilvy regional strategist, Tim Ho. He is
best known for leading an international
multi-award winning social media campaign,
Huggies Babies-On-the-Go.
SALT operates in Hong Kong, Canada, and
Mexico, specializes in creating innovative
campaign ideas and brand management on
digital and social media for lifestyle and
hospitality brands.

33. about
SALT is a new creative agency, founded by
ex-Ogilvy regional strategist, Tim Ho. He is
best known for leading an international
Idea multi-award winning social media campaign,
Tim Ho | Hong Kong Huggies Babies-On-the-Go.
tim@saltflavour.com
SALT operates in Hong Kong, Canada, and
Editor Mexico, specializes in creating innovative
Alexandra Birukova | Canada campaign ideas and brand management on
alexandra@saltflavour.com digital and social media for lifestyle and
hospitality brands.
Design
Tim Ho | Hong Kong
tim@saltflavour.com
Research
Tim Ho | Hong Kong
tim@saltflavour.com
Carlos Saenz | Mexico
carlos@saltflavour.com

34. SALTflavour.com
hello@SALTflavour.com
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