The way in which society develops has a lot to do with choice, and the shift that's occurred in how consumers use the internet is no exception. Users can now choose from millions of information sources, are free to publish content on whatever they wish and encouraged to share their opinions on social networking sites.
So, with web users able to effectively publish what they like about brands, retailers have rightfully recognised the need to make their own voice heard.
Blogs in particular can help build brand identity, providing context for collections and encouraging engagement, as well as benefitting search engine optimisation by drawing traffic to a site.
Building a community
The majority of high-street fashion retailers now have some form of blog, employing varying degrees of imagination, engagement and originality, but of the blogs I looked at - those run by ASOS, Dorothy Perkins, French Connection, Miss Selfridge, New Look, River Island, Topshop and Warehouse - only three (ASOS, River Island and Topshop) received enough traffic to appear on Google's research tool DoubleClick Ad Planner. So what are they doing right?
ASOS's community site receives the most unique UK visitors of the three, with 43,000 a month, each spending an average of three minutes on the site and returning 3.6 times within the month.
Apart from the behind-the-scenes 'ASOS uncovered' and 'ASOS model behaviour' blogs, and 'Vauxhall fashion scout', a section providing high-fashion coverage, the majority of the site is based around user generated content (UGC) and this plays a major role in its success.
The 'my fashion my way' and 'Saturday night style' sections, as well as the 'share your outfit' group encourage users to share their style, making them the focus of the content. Competitions focused on UGC and blogger outreach events tap into the immense popularity of self-published fashion content that platforms such as www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com facilitate. And forums allow users to interact with each other and build their own community.
Engaging content
River Island is also enjoying significant social success with its Style Insider editorial and community site. Attracting 27,000 unique UK visitors a month, each user spends on average five minutes and thirty seconds on the site and returns 3.3 times within the month.
The time on site statistic is telling, topping both ASOS and Topshop, and I would argue that such engagement stems from the high standard and range of content on offer.
Much of the site is written by the creative brains behind the brand - clothes, shoe and accessory designers, as well as visual display managers and merchandisers. Graduate fashion week coverage is given its own section on the site, and a widget-based competition asks users to design their own pyjamas. All appealing to those interested and involved in the fashion industry.
Galleries and the 'your style' section tap into the interest around street style and selp-published outfit posts, incentivising engagement with cash prizes. And the site acknowledges the strong relationship fashion enjoys with music, film and TV, boasting its own music and celebrity style sections.
It's easy to navigate, interactive and full of top-quality well-designed content; a great case study on how to do social well.
Going through the motions
Topshop's Inside-Out blog, on the other hand, is slightly disappointing, considering their position as a top player in the high-street fashion market. You'd expect more than a simple blog roll from the only high-street retailer to have its own show at London Fashion Week.
Focusing on Topshop pieces, trends and events, the blog doesn't offer much in terms of originality, creating similar content to many retailers that can be seen to be going through the motions.
But it is Topshop, and if they build it people will come, which seems to be the exception to the retail rule. The Inside-Out blog gets 4,300 unique UK visitors a month, spending on average two minutes and 10 seconds on the site and returning an average of 4.5 times within the month. This means that while users visit the blog more often than they do the ASOS and River Island community hubs, they are spending less time on the page, pointing to a lack of engagement.
Personality injection
That's not to say that you need an all-singing, all-dancing community area to offer something unique. French Connection's current 'The Man' and 'The Woman' campaigns are accompanied by a suitably tongue-in-cheek Manifesto blog.
Highlights of the minimalist but stylised blog roll include games of internet chat roulette, an image illustrating favourite facial hair styles and a review of a mod jacket in which the model reports that: "Wearing it to the pub made strangers buy me single malts. Wearing it on the bus made schoolgirls giggle into their crisp packets".
It's simple but witty, and most importantly it has the personality that is integral to the retailer's current rebrand.
Working the network
A recent Experian Hitwise report into London Fashion Week (LFW) traffic trends found that social networking sites and forums topped the list of industries receiving traffic after users had visited the official LFW site, with 7.21% of clicks. Fashion lifestyle sites received 6.25% of downstream traffic, search engines 5.2%, print, news and media sites 4.63% and apparel and accessories (shopping sites) 3,47%.
And with Facebook boasting over 400 million users, it's a space in which retailers want to be heard. Rather than populating a blog with content, Next pooled its social efforts around LFW on Facebook, choosing this as the platform to report from, and becoming the third top fashion site to receive traffic downstream of LFW, attracting 0.31% of clicks, to ASOS's 0.38% and Topshops' 0.58%.
Over the next six months it's likely that we'll see much more involved Facebook and Twitter action from fashion retailers as consumer engagement is recognised as all important to brand health. Blogger outreach is also on the up as a marketing tactic, but as Mademoiselle Robot explains, brands are still learning as they go.
One thing is for sure - the way that consumers and fashion brands interact with each other is shifting, and the journey has only just begun.
Jo-ann Hodgson is a journalist and copywriter for digital marketing agency iCrossing UK