By Karen Aney (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: December 6, 2011
No one—aside from that fabled one per cent—has much money these days. That applies to the everyday citizen, yes, but it also applies to the businesses we shop from every day. Companies have had to scale back their expenditures in every realm, including marketing. This has forced some of them to get creative, and resulted in some pretty interesting junctures with the social media universe.
This recent phenomenon is perhaps most prevalent in the fashion world. Fashion bloggers obsess over the latest jacket or that “it” pair of shoes. They also typically take daily pictures of themselves and their outfits for the day. For fashion companies, this equals some great opportunities for revenue. Think about it – popular blogs have thousands of visitors each day. Bryanboy—who some refer to as the original fashion blogger—has over 199,000 followers on Twitter. To put that in perspective, the official Vancouver Canucks twitter account has only 191,236 followers.
He’s done many collaborations, and counts people like Marc Jacobs and the late Alexander Wang among his acquaintances. When interviewed at this year’s New York Fashion Week, he elaborated on why the social media strategy works in the fashion world, saying that Dolce & Gabbana’s trailblazing methods on the runway are working in their advertising as well.
This is achieved with relatively little cost by providing bloggers with free products. They already have followers that number in the thousands – it’s a small, captive audience just waiting to have those images proverbially shoved down their throats. The cost of one purse—even if it’s Dolce & Gabbana—is negligible if even a fraction of that audience is inspired to buy something their favourite blogger wears.
Another stream of this collaboration is blogger-endorsed design lines. Jessica Quirk, the owner of whatiwore.tumblr.com, has 125,000 unique monthly visitors. Recently, she published her own style guide that is available both online and in bookstores internationally. Before the book deal came along, though, she did a few collaborations. One was with Coach: she designed a bag that was sold in a special blogger-feature line. Other bloggers have had this opportunity as well: Jane Aldridge of Sea of Shoes created a line with Urban Outfitters, and the most recent capsule collection at H&M came to us care of Elin King, Swedish blogging sensation.
The opportunities are staggering, both for large companies and small. Given the popularity of online shopping, collaborating with bloggers is really just an extended advertising pool. In essence, collaborations like these are the commercials of the social media world: when paired with the proper, pre-existing audience, both the blogger’s readership and the company itself can profit.
This expands to other realms of the blogosphere, though perhaps less noticeably. For example, photographers gain notoriety by taking family pictures for a “Mommy Blogger” and a struggling artist can showcase their work by sending paintings to an interior design blogger. Essentially, while larger corporations are using this tool, smaller artists and business-minded people can learn to work with social media to make it mutually advantageous.
The take-away here is that new technology and social media are enabling people to make a living doing what they love. If you’re a fashionista, write a fashion blog for free clothes. Like to cook? Pictures of last night’s dinner could score you a personalized mixer. If you’re a gamer, posting reviews could land you a free copy of an upcoming game. On the flip side, if you’re trying to sell something, look to the blogging community for an instant audience. The blogosphere is our new marketplace – and there’s no fee here for advertising your wares.
