FUTURE TRENDS SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DENIM BRANDS

Today, as social media provides brands with increased visibility, it helps build a strong brand identity. Social media presence today is a no-brainer! One would be hard-pressed to find a denim brand that is not present on social media. But some brands are better at navigating this still-new space than others. To that extent we have ranked 15 brands, which have created a buzz on social media, through real-time social activity, fan following, audience growth, quality of campaigns and many more factors. Did your favourite make the cut?

Why are denim brands turning to social media to increase brand presence?

A whole new world is emerging, focused on individuality, giving users the space and the audience to put forth their opinions.

Digital media has picked up pace in India and is expected to grow rapidly vis-à-vis other media. Over 2011–16, Indian digital media is expected to grow at 31 percent CAGR whereas print at only about 11 percent, signaling a huge scope for the future of digital marketing.

India leads worldwide social networking growth and is all set to have the world’s highest Facebook population by 2016.

The country is increasing its ‘social’ user base by 37.4 percent every year! We, presently, have the world’s second largest Facebook population after the United States. What is more interesting is that we will overtake United States in terms of the number of Facebook users by 2016, and have the largest ’social’ population. That signals a huge potential!

Are you looking to tap the youth?

India is a relatively young country. Coincidentally, 75 percent of Facebook users are young, falling in the age bracket of 18–34 years. Reports suggest that after 10 years, the median age in India will be 29 years. Also, the target population of denimwear is 14 to 39 years, indicating an exciting opportunity for denim brands.

Majority of the youth being online and denim being an everyday wear for them, denim brands have increased their presence exponentially on social media. There is, however, a stiff competition. Let us find out who is on top!

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS BY DENIM BRANDS: AN OVERVIEW

GLOBAL SOCIAL LANDSCAPE FOR DENIM BRANDS

Globally, especially in the US, the denim brands seem to be performing remarkably well than their Indian counterparts when engagement levels are compared. The pioneer of denim, Levi’s, is a clear winner on the social space as well. Levi’s leads the bandwagon of denim brands with 21.7 million Facebook fans. Tommy Hilfiger stands at a distant second on Facebook with 8.9 million fans.

Indian denim brands need to analyse these top global denim brands and learn from their success stories to innovate their own social media strategies.

INDIAN SOCIAL LANDSCAPE FOR DENIM BRANDS

Indian denim brands are embracing social media. However, when compared with foreign brands, they are present on lesser number of platforms and are far behind both in terms of content quality and engagement.

Flying Machine is the leading social denim brand in India, with 1 million Facebook fans, followed closely by John Players with 751,817 fans. The rest of the denim brands in India have less than 500,000 fans on Facebook, thus suggesting that they need to make aggressive moves if they want to capture the young social consumer!

TRENDS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Brands these days are using the platform of social media to engage with consumers. Let us find out how!

Style tips: What to wear and what not!

Apart from sharing their latest collection, denim brands also give tips on what colours and styles to combine.

Beat the heat with Summer Jeans

Jeans is an all-season article having demand round the year. However, during summers, people generally opt for lighter materials to beat the heat. Nowadays, as the summer is at its peak, brands are positioning denim as a summer product by showcasing their collection of denim shorts and summerish jeans, marketing them as the ‘in thing’.

Contests & prize giveaways: The way to generate traffic

Denim brands have organised several contests ranging from getting people to post their wackiest selfies and get-away-pics to creating videos of bikers, showing that denim can be used anytime, anywhere. Wrangler even went on to give a Kawasaki bike as reward for a contest, which attracted several fans to participate in the contest.

Hashtag posts: Increase your visibility

One of the best ways to reach a larger audience is to use hashtags in your posts, and denim brands have used it well to their credit. Pepe wins this round with peppy hashtags like #LikeABrit, #GettheGoodStuff and #areyouPepe posts. Wrangler and Jack & Jones have also used hashtags reasonably well for all their contests and campaigns.

SUMMARY OF PERFORMANCE OF SOCIAL DENIM BRANDS

PERFORMANCE ON FACEBOOK

Levi’s is currently the Facebook King in terms of number of Facebook fans, leading with 21.6 million fans followed by Tommy Hilfiger with 8.9 million fans and Benetton with 5.8 million followers. It has been noticed that international brands have performed much better than their Indian counterparts, with the latter having less than 1 million fans.

PERFORMANCE ON TWITTER

Barring Moustache, all other denim brands are present on Twitter. Tommy Hilfiger is clearly way ahead of the rest in terms of fan following on Twitter.

Levi’s stands at a close second. All the rest have a few number of followers with Diesel, Benetton and Pepe still showing a better performance than most others.

OTHER PLATFORMS

YouTube is another prominent platform after Facebook and Twitter in terms

of brand presence. Most brands are also present on Pinterest. Only Levi’s, Jack & Jones and Diesel are present on Instagram while Pepe, Jack & Jones, Tommy Hilfiger and Crimsoune Club have a presence on Google+.

LEVI’S

Levi’s, the brand that originated the concept of denim, clearly rules the social media with 21.6 million fan following on Facebook. Levi’s India is relatively a newer entrant on Facebook, having joined only on April 14, 2014. They have relatively fewer posts but have nonetheless managed to gain high engagement owing to the brand’s eminent presence in India.

Levi’s has been successful on social media because they do more than sell clothing – they participate in conversations central to their audience.

The content is centred on how one can pair jeans with different tops, stylishly. They have recently started ‘quote of the day’ and ‘caption the pic’ posts, which are highly engaging for the audience.

Another interesting aspect is their positioning of jeans as summerwear by using #SummerJeans #BeatTheHeat #KeepCool hashtag posts.

When the summers kicked in, Levi’s started #501Shorts Campaign on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram asking for pictures with people wearing their Levi’s shorts. This is an interesting way to get people excited about denim, when the weather is too hot to sport it.

They also showcase all their sales and promotions on Twitter exclusively.

LEE COOPER

Lee cooper has been promoting their denims through #MadetoMake hashtag on a short-film they have prepared about their denims.

Additionally, they have organised a ‘Get Creative with Lee Cooper’ design contest on Facebook where people can send T-shirts designed in a unique way. They also have ‘What’s in your bag?’ posts running, showcasing their latest collection. Lee Cooper has attracted a good number of likes on their posts though the number of comments is less, thus suggesting that the content has captured a lot of attention but is not quite engaging with the viewers. They are not very active on Twitter.

PEPE

Pepe organises campaigns and has regular hashtag posts like #PepeLook, #GettheGoodStuff, #areyouPepe, #LikeABrit, and #PepeRecommends – all depicting styles from their latest collection. The most interesting campaign run by them is #DenimDiary, where people can post their recent get-away pics on Facebook wearing Pepe Jeans. Recently, they have launched a similar campaign called #TravelDiaries. They have also organised Fashiolista contest on Twitter inviting people to seek advice from the experts and win a pair of Pepe Jeans. On YouTube, they have posted videos of the campaigns and festivals organised to promote Pepe Jeans, the most viewed being ‘Pepe Jeans London Spring Summer 2013 Campaign’.

WRANGLER

Wrangler has projected itself as a brand providing a rugged look with contests attracting the adventurous, mostly bike-riders. They ran a contest titled, ‘TrueWanderer series’, where people would write about their road trips and get featured on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

The objective of this campaign was to highlight their range of water- repellent denims and 7 icon jeans that are designed keeping in mind the comfort a biker needs when taking long road trips. The winner got a Kawasaki bike as a prize. They also organised #Wranglersunchaser contest on Facebook, asking people to send a bike riding selfie on Facebook and get a chance to win a trip to the destination of their choice. Their YouTube channel contains ‘HardRider Series’, giving a peek into the life of bike riders. Wrangler has truly captured the bike rider crowd and has gone big when it comes to giving out prizes. They have, thus, captured a lot of attention and attracted many entries.

BENETTON

Benetton has the highest engagement rate amongst all denim brands. They have beautifully showcased their collection on Facebook employing various hashtags like #Summerly, #Beachwear, #Undercolors, and #Benetton. They have created a concept store to showcase various styles and combinations of tops with denims. They also talk about the latest trends and how one can live up to them wearing Benetton clothes. They have pictures from their magazine issues on all the platforms – Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

TOMMY HILFIGER

Tommy Hilfiger adds the maximum number of fans on Facebook every month amongst all denim brands. It also has the highest engagement rate on Facebook. The brand has better utilised Pinterest than most other brands. On Facebook and Twitter, their campaign #ThrowbackDenim Shortlist gets people to share their pictures wearing denims. This invited a lot of engagement with people participating in volumes of thousands. However, they have similar posts across all their platforms; they have not differentiated one social media platform from the other leading to a very less variety in the kind of posts.

DIESEL

Diesel also has a good engagement rate with the number of likes reaching 6,000 for some posts. They have showcased their shades of summer using hashtag #denimeye to portray their summer collection. According to statistics, Diesel followers are connecting well with the posts. The number of likes for Diesel is second highest after Tommy Hilfiger amongst the 15 denim brands surveyed.

JACK & JONES

Jack & Jones has the strongest presence on Instagram amongst all denim brands surveyed. They have organised several competitions on Instagram. They also had a Facebook contest #GoLIVEwithDADA, asking people to send in their wackiest selfies. On Google+ and Instagram, they organised #JJSpringBreak competition where people were asked to make a funny video. They have several hashtag posts on Facebook, for example #styleadvisor, which shares tips on fashion and style. Their discounts and sale promotions are well pronounced on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

SPYKAR

Spykar is the only Indian denim brand that has engagement rate comparable to the international ones. Their hashtag posts include #DailyDenims, #BeatTheHeat, and #styletip. They also showcase their deals and promotions on Facebook. They have #DIY posts showing people how they can make their own variants from denims, for example cut-offs. Spykar also has presence on Pinterest, but it is not much active on it.

FLYING MACHINE

Flying Machine has the largest fan following amongst Indian brands. The brand was also the sponsor of Kings-XI Punjab IPL Team this year. Their brand colour is red, so they used it in sync with Kings-XI Punjab’s theme. Their summer collection is demonstrated by #newcool hashtag. However, they have no contest or campaign running, which are essential to attract a crowd to a page.

KILLER

Killer has made optimal use of its brand name to connect with the audience. It has organised ‘KillerCampaigns’ like #KillerJeans, which was a ‘Hot or Not’ contest on Facebook and Twitter. They have also been the style partner for MTV Roadies show; denim nails being a hot favourite during the show.

MOUSTACHE

Moustache has very well worded posts, playing with words like #MASTouch.

They offer #styletip posts as well.

Their Facebook posts depict a sense of boldness by asking questions like “which player was the biggest flop in IPL 2014?” However, compared to other brands, they have a very low engagement rate.

HOFFMEN

Hoffmen has very few posts, and that too very basic. Besides, there is nothing quirky in their content. They have less engagement and few page likes on Facebook. Their Twitter pages are much better, portraying their collection very well and asking people about their favourite combination of top and denimwear.

JOHN PLAYERS

John Players, amongst all Indian brands, adds the maximum number of fans per month. On their Facebook and Twitter pages, the brand has shared good information about their denimwear, using the hashtags #PlayItUp and #ColorItUp. However, they have a very low engagement rate. The Twitter posts are same as Facebook, which shows they have not utilised the Twitter platform very well.

CRIMSOUNE CLUB

Crimsoune Club has a limited social media presence with very less engagement. Their content on Facebook page is centred round SpotTheDifferences, ThisorThat and Color trivia. Their Twitter page has only 9 tweets. They must improve both the quality and quantity of their posts to attract people to their pages.

FUTURE TRENDS FOR DENIM BRANDS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

WHAT’S NEXT? HERE ARE SOME OF THE FUTURE TRENDS WE FORESEE IN THE DENIM SECTOR:

Multiplatform takes centre stage

Brands will face a challenge to stay ahead of the consumer usage curve and deliver them what they want, when and where they want it. With an increase in the number of platforms, integration between delivery of content and the ability to deliver campaigns in a multi-platform fashion will be challenging.

Online video to emerge

As a bridge between traditional and digital platforms, online video will play an important role in how integration strategies materialise.

Style advocacy

Brands are slowly becoming style advocates by posting fashion and style tips regularly on their profiles.

Social media analytics to drive future investments

Brands will move beyond measuring return on investment (ROI) in terms of likes and followers. Social media analytics is thriving since it provides more insightful results, and hence more relevant parameters will be used to measure ROI in the coming times.

Social media marketing

With greater focus on social media platforms, the marketing budget may also skew towards traditional mediums.

Building stronger customer relationships

Digital is not a medium to simply broadcast messages; it is a two-way channel. The digital platform can be effectively used to build a denim brand, respond to customer queries and create long-lasting relationships with customers.

Plan your way and strategise how to tap your target audience through social media. Social media marketing is the buzzword today. However, not everything connects with the youth and trends online. Brands need to have a clear understanding of each platform and keep in mind the interests of their consumers. Now is the era of building brands through engagement with consumers!