As I pride myself on being a real fashion and social media fanatic, over the past year or so I’ve been following and observing fashion retailers and the channels they’ve been using to represent their brands ‘voice’.

Digital has undoubtedly taken over the traditional fashion spectrum. Gone are the days where individuals who are eager to know about fashion trends, merely pick up the latest fashion magazine for their latest style fix. In a society where technology is ever changing and instant - fashionistas log into various social networking portals to connect with brands and fellow fans.

According to the Internet Measurement Research Group (IMRG) sales of clothes online rose considerably in May 2010, with a 32% increase compared to last year. Even better, Facebook and Twitter users spend 1.5x more online than the average user - which is why fashion retailers need to be aware of the fast paced digital revolution drawing upon them.

Successful conversations and connections with customers take immense planning and preparation. So, the first step in developing a comprehensive social media marketing plan is to define objectives and expected outcomes. Below are some suggestions of the benefits of certain social media platforms to fashion retailers.

Facebook is great for visual stimulation and forming a creative context for consumers i.e. uploading pictures of behind the scenes photo shoots and celebrities spotted in their attire. In the office, we’ve been creating customised tabs for brands, as it’s a great way to organise content. Facebook boxes also not only look appealing and incentivise but increase usability for fans (i.e. signup to emails and quick links).

User generated content is also an important mechanism that Facebook makes possible. Savvy online shoppers are becoming more challenging and like to express themselves and exchange their opinions on goods and services. An example of this is Lipsy who encourages women to upload and tag photos of themselves wearing their dresses. Lipsy then selects winners on a monthly basis and publishes them on their wall of fame http://bit.ly/deeDjG.

Twitter, the contemporary buzz outlet for fashion, is great for general updates and initiating conversation. Competitions or contests are also particularly popular. Fashion retailers such as River Island (“Don't forget to tweet #riverislandgfw before 5pm for your chance to win this dress from the GFW Boutique http://bit.ly/c40E20”) have been running free clothing/accessory give-aways recently, and interaction and ‘re-tweets’ are huge and most importantly viral.

Broadcasting fashion events or a première, with pictures is another technique for promoting clothing on Twitter. An example of this was when our Creative Director (@johnnieego) was the official Twitter photographer of the première of ‘The Disappearance of Alice Creed’ and provided pictures to outline key events. It’s fair to say that many were only interested in where the star of the film, Gemma Arterton’s outfit was from, rather than focussing on the updates!

Geo-marketing is also another approach, which is carried out on a wide range of location based social networks such as Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla. I’ve recently created proposals for fashion chains that want to dip their toes into location-based marketing.

A recent social media strategy I enjoyed observing was Jimmy Choo’s Foursquare based treasure hunt called ‘CatchAChoo’ to promote their new trainer range whilst offering winners the chance to win a free pair. To generate deep levels of engagement, pictures of a Jimmy Choo bag (containing the shoes) in potential locations were posted over Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook. According to New Media Age 3,500 people took part and 400 bloggers covered the initiative

Social media needn’t be just a marketing strategy. It can also focus on researching and foreseeing fashion movements and trends. There are some great tools out there, such as Social Media Mention and Radian 6 – to monitor your company’s online presence on a wide range of platforms, whether positive or negative, big or small.

If you want to find out more about social media strategy for fashion retailers or have any questions drop a tweet to the company account @Brandmovers_uk.