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Social Media Planning for Emerging Fashion Designers

This past fall I taught Social Media Applications for Fashion Marketing at George Brown College in Toronto, Canada. I made sure each of my classes had an application to the fashion industry, but truth be told, the basics of how to use social media for your business are the same, it doesn’t matter what industry you are in.

Yes, of course whether you are a B2B or a B2C company, if you are small or large, or your industry matter when you consider your tools and platforms, and even your execution, but the strategy stays the same:

Plan, execute, measure and repeat. – Click to TWEET it!

I find planning puts people off. It takes time and you don’t see immediate results. But good planing can be efficient, and it saves you more time and money later on.

I am going to tell you the 4 main stages for building a social media plan, whether you are a tech startup, a fashion brand or a biotech company.

1. Social Media Plan – Target Audience

Don’t start using social media channels for your brand before knowing your target audience.

  • Where are they online?
  • Where are they offline?

Create a user persona for your product/services:

  • Demographic profile (age, physical attributes, family and friends)
  • Psychographic profile (attitudes, beliefs and opinions)
  • Professional profile (education, work experience)
  • Environment profile ( physical)

2. Social Media Plan – Goals

List 3 goals for your social media strategy that are:

  • Specific
  • Realistic
  • Measurable

Set a specific timeline for achieving your goals.

3. Social Media Plan – Track & Measure

Remember that “likes are not buys” ( I have to give credit for this to one of my clients, clever and true!). Your goals shouldn’t necessarily mean you have to reach a certain number of followers or likes. Rather, you should strive for high engagement rates and for receiving positive feedback from your customers.

Use analytics tools:

  • Google Analytics
  • Twitter Analytics
  • Facebook Insights
  • Hootsuite

Always measure against your goals. What worked and what didn’t?

4. Social Media Plan – Adjust & Repeat

This is the end of one learning cycle. Eliminate the tactics that didn’t work for you and focus and improve on those that did.

Keep it lean! – Click to TWEET it!

If you are an emerging fashion designers use these 4 key elements to social media planning to help you build an efficient and solid strategy. If you need any help setting up your social media profiles or you have any questions about social media tools, platforms and practices, contact us and we will love to chat with you!

This article was first published on LinkedIn by our co-founder Ana Caracaleanu.