Importance of social media for fashion brands

Social media has captured a prominent place in the world of marketing. Regardless of how big a brand is, it has become pivotal for any brand to have a face on social media.

Statistically speaking, a brand’s popularity and following on social media directly reflects on its sales. It makes it easier for the brand to reach out, launch products, engage and interact with the audience and increase brand awareness.

For newer brands, it has become the most effective way of marketing.

Gucci on social media

One such luxury brand, one of the most followed on social media is Gucci. Gucci is considered to be the King of social media for many reasons. Gucci dominates the world of social media with its mix of pop-culture and high fashion.

Gucci has more than 40 million followers on Instagram and it uses the platform for brand promotion as well as user engagement. It has also achieved a nice level of user engagement on Instagram.

They have accounts in Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

Having accounts and being active on a wide variety of social platforms increase their brand reach tremendously.

Consuming and creating content on social media is a way of life for the Millennial generation. Gucci accomplishes this perfectly.

How does Gucci reach its audience

Two things are fundamental to the way Gucci develops its strategy and narrative that appears on their social media platforms – authenticity and inclusivity.

It is Alessandro Michele’s philosophy, and the way he creates his collections.

In the social media world, it means Gucci uses platforms both as open doors to the outside world, allowing them to co-create with other people and to be able to reflect what Millennials believe in.

So the campaigns he creates, the way he brings his fashion shows to life, and the original content they shoot for their social media platforms, are all very coherent and essentially communicating the same narrative.

Alessandro’s vision of fashion is really to allow individuals to express themselves. This is what Gucci stands for as a brand and it is what drives their digital strategy.

Gucci has emerged in research in recent months as one of the brands achieving the greatest engagement through its content, especially on Instagram thanks to its authentic and consistent narrative and also its collaborations.

Gucci’s greatest engagement is coming from original creative content, often through collaboration, either in the form of a creative project, or through an ambassador of the House with a large personal following who appears in the content itself.

For a luxury brand, it’s also important to distribute that same narrative across all your different touchpoints, which not only include social media, but also their website, packaging, campaigns, etc.

In my view, that ability to connect all the dots in a coherent and cohesive way, is a fundamental element in Gucci’s success today.

Interactions on Instagram

#GucciGram, where Alessandro invited artists and illustrators to repurpose three of Gucci’s iconic motifs on Instagram, and #24HourAce, where the brand handed over the reins of its Snapchat account to a series of different artists for a full 24 hours and asked them to shoot a creative and colorful mini-video centered around the Ace sneakers.

The #TFWGucci meme project, to launch a new timepiece collection that brought together digital artists from around the world.

These artistic connections can also develop well beyond a single campaign. For example, Alessandro’s discovery on Instagram of Unskilled Worker – the moniker used by British artist Helen Downie – led to a collaboration around an exclusive capsule collection.

Gucci’s one-week plan on social media

Gucci’s content operates at multiple levels. You can look at a photo or illustration and simply enjoy the aesthetics at face value.

However, if you want to dig down, their content has a deeper level. For example, the illustrations created for Gucci by digital artist Ignasi Monreal for their Spring Summer 2018 campaign are inspired by modern art and there is a story behind each image.

If you read the narratives on Gucci’s Instagram posts, there is an intellectual and cultural level to them. Overall, I think there is a high degree of sophistication about their social media content that creates a stronger emotional engagement.

Firstly Gucci is continuously generating content and tailoring it for different platforms, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, and Snapchat.

The days of launching campaigns in line with two seasonal collections and the pre-collections are over. There is now a voracious appetite for their narrative, so the rhythm and cadence of content generation is rapid.

As for the media, Instagram is probably their signature platform in terms of traction and engagement.

They currently have 44 million followers and the visual nature of Instagram allows them to display their content, while the addition of Instagram Stories has given them a very powerful medium for bite-size video, which is extremely important today.

What I’ve noticed on their feed is that they have a pattern of posting.

On an average in a week they post (Instagram) :

1. Pictures of inspiration
2. Models
3. Celebrities and ambassadors
4. Awareness posts (Social issues)
5. Engaging posts for audience
6. Launching of products

They tweet about (Twitter) :

1. Public awareness issues
2. Celebrities and ambassadors
3. Gucci Community (Pictures)
4. New Products

These are the factors that make Gucci the King of social media.