Sure, social media marketing will help you sell more clothes. But the benefits go far beyond just sales.

From brand awareness to establishing your brand’s vibe to seeing how you stack up against competitors, social media marketing for your fashion brand will be a game changer.

There are some caveats for brands wanting to get ahead with social media marketing. More exposure means more opinions and at the end of the day, fashion trends tend to both pop up and have a short shelf life. With the right social media marketing strategy, it’s your job to keep your social presence relevant.

With all of the options and strategies when it comes to marketing fashion brands on social media, it can get a little overwhelming. Because we’ve worked with so many fashion brands and have helped them enhance their social presence, we’ve created this guide to boost sales, awareness and retention for your own fashion brand in 2023.

Identify Your Audience

Just like anything, brands can’t succeed with social media marketing without a strong foundation. Knowing your audience and goals will help you develop a data-driven strategy for the amazing things you can do on social for your fashion brand.

It’s helpful to revisit your buyer personas and identify things like:

• Which social platforms do your audience spend most of their time?
• What makes your brand unique?
• Which pain points do your consumers face?
• What has converted your current customers in the past?
• How do consumers find your brand?

A big part of identifying your audience is narrowing down your target age demographic. Afterall, if you’re going after Gen Z, keep in mind that half of this age demographic has made a purchase after being incentivised on social media.

Elements of a Strong Social Media Strategy in the Fashion Industry

The pandemic kind of flipped the fashion industry on it’s head. Consumers quickly realized the value of online shopping more than ever before. And even though retail locations are open to the public again, consumers still value to option to purchase online.

Therefore, many brick and mortar stores are revamping their marketing strategy and are realizing that they can capitalize on online sales by leveraging social media marketing.

The fashion industry, as you know, is very competitive. You need to be unique to stand out from the crowd. Arguably, you need to be a disruptor in your space.

Consistent posting is key. Try to alternate the 4 core strategies with each post. The main strategies fall into promoting, educating, inspiring and entertaining. 

Be sure that your social profiles are optimized so that your brand can hit the ground running. Be strategic with your link on TikTok, verify your account on Instagram and encourage UGC from YouTube, for example.

Your CTA in your social media posts is uber important as well. Guiding your audience to take the action you want them to, like making a purchase, usually just needs a little bit of guidance. Perhaps you want your audience to use your social media store front? Or maybe you have a new product that you want your audience to buy straight from your website? You can literally accomplish any goal for your social media marketing, it will just require a clear CTA.

Social Media Content Ideas

Ready to hit the ground running with your social media strategy? Consider the following types of content to engage your audience and get the most value from your efforts.

Live streaming: Almost every social platform has live shopping functionality. Take advantage of this feature to increase sales by incentivising your audience to purchase in real-time. A lot of times fashion brands will partner with influencers to host their live streams.

Branded content: Lead with your brand’s values and goals to create some visually appealing social media content. The fashion industry is all about pretty visuals and branding when it comes to their social presence. Marine Layer does an excellent job of this on Instagram.

Showcase your new apparel: Keep your audience in the loop via social media by sharing all of your latest and greatest pieces of clothing. This nurtures existing consumers into becoming repeat consumers by keeping your brand top-of-mind. Free People does a great job of this. Nordstrom does this well.

Behind the scenes: Capture your company culture and share what goes on behind the scenes at your fashion brand. Consumers love to feel like they’re a part of your brand and social media is a great way to placate these consumers. Vessi does it well with this TikTok post.

Run a giveaway: You don’t need a third party platform to run an effective giveaway. Just make it enticing enough for your target audience to fill out a lead capture form and encourage them to share your giveaway on their own channels.

Repurpose blog content: Utilize what you’ve written for your blog on your social media channels. Perhaps a series on TikTok? Maybe a set of Reels on Instagram?

Social proof: Albeit a brand ambassador, influencer, insert your buzz word here, social proof is a great way to show your audience why your product is so great by leveraging a consumer’s actual experience on social media. This can be sharing a post written about your brand or even just a consumer’s testimonial about your brand. Free People leverages a ton of UGC on their TikTok channel.

Foster a Paid and Organic Strategy

When establishing a social media presence, fashion brands need to realize the value of both paid and organic content.

If you are first starting out, paid is going to get your brand good visibility which means more engagement which means more traffic which means more sales if your website converts well. We have seen paid social media marketing work well when brands leverage third-party content in paid. It’s all about “social proof” in the fashion industry and you can learn more about that here.

Organic social media is great when you’re on a limited budget. Afterall, don’t you want your audience to engage with your brand because they want to? Be a thought leader in the fashion space and offer exclusive perks for your followers and your organic strategy will be in shape in no time.

Using the Right Hashtags

When a brand is starting out, one of the best ways they can organically increase followers is by tapping into the right hashtags. 

Many people who make up your target audience often follow hashtags instead of brands so this is a great way to get in front of new and engaged audiences.

Not to mention, TikTok is so hot for so many fashion brands. Their algorithm uses hashtags to recommend new content to their users.

You can use a hashtag generator tool or you can search for popular hashtags directly in the social platforms you post in.

Identify Trending Topics

As you know, fashion trends appear out of nowhere and can disappear before you can get your goals aligned to jump on the bandwagon. That’s why identifying trends before they happen is key to a fashion brand’s presence on social media. 

To identify trending topics, social media listening is crucial. Your goal is to spot trends before they happen so that your brand can stack up.

Use a social listening tool. Then, monitor for certain hashtags and follow fashion influencers so you can get a birds eye view of what is trending in the fashion industry.

Don’t Forget About Video

There is a reason why people say that video is king.

Consumers prefer to learn about fashion brands through video as opposed to simply just the written word. In fact, 69% of consumers report wanting to learn about a new brand through video content.

Video content being a priority is probably organically recognized by the rise of TikTok and the functionality of more traditional social platforms incorporating video to keep up.

At the end of the day, you won’t get the competitive edge in the fashion space without producing a lot of video content.

Working With Social Media Influencers

Influencers have an already engaged audience who is eager to hear about your fashion brand from someone they view as a peer. Influencers are seen as peers and will be the best friends to your social media marketing strategy.

We encourage you to value quality of quantity. Meaning, the fashion influencers that you recruit should be known for posting exceptional content instead of the number of followers they have.

Influencer marketing is all about authenticity so only work with influencers who share your brands values and genuinely love your product.

The Value of UGC

UGC is a staple to fruitful social media content for fashion brands.

Did you know that a whopping 90% of consumers report making a purchasing decision based on a peer’s UGC?

It’s helpful to periodically send out an email to your consumers asking them to post about your brand. Offer an incentive like 20% off their next purchase if they post showcasing your brand.

Once you earn UGC, you can use it on your own social channels and even leverage it for paid ads.

Urgent: Customer Service

Consumers, particularly younger consumers, expect customer service to take place very quickly and on the social media platforms of their choice.

Make sure you dedicated the time to execute your customer service presence on social media. Check your inboxes every hour so that your consumers feel like your brand is responsive. Reply right away to questions you get about your clothing because a lot of potential consumers will have questions about your products from sizing to materials and more.

Customer service is expected on social media and it also helps convert interested customers into paying customers.

Next Steps: How Can I Do Better With Social Media in 2023?

Mastering all the social media platforms and leveraging all the nuances in the fashion industry is obviously a lot of work.

Take into consideration the fulltime salary for someone to own social media marketing for your fashion brand. Compare it to the cost of an expert agency who specializes in fashion brands and has the expertise to run it for you.

The right agency or dedicated employee will realize how important it is to identify your audience before posting anything. They will then present you with strategies on how social media content can reach these target consumers. Experiment with paid and organic and don’t be afraid to be unique.

Rossman Media is recognized as one of the top agencies for fashion brands for a reason and you can book your free consultation here to explore if we’d be good partners.

If you were able to share one social media marketing tip for fashion brands, what would it be? We would love to read your insights in the comments below!