A few thoughts

on how to build the coolest apparel e-storethroughDigital Media & Social Thinking

Chandramouli Bhattacharya

“Fashion is a highly social category, and people naturally want to share the things they find, want and purchase.” – ShoeDazzle on FB Testimonials

Pillar 1Socially integrated – Make

shopping a truly social experience with friends

and sharing in each part of the journey

Pillar 2Leverage influencers –

Establish influencer status through blogger network and evangelist programs

Pillar 3

Back linking, SEO and Web PR

Pillar 4

Content heavy strategy, creative ideas: aiming for

content virality

Step 1:Website

Step 3:Social Media Strategy & Email

Step 4:Paid Advertisements

Step 5:Articles, PR, Affiliates and others

Step 2SEO

- Website design best practices- Website integration with social

- Integration with Blogs- Shopper Experience

Step 5:Creatively Inspired

Basic Approach

- SEO best practices- Keyword Research- Backlinking- Tracking

-Social media ecosystem-Cross leveraging social media-Social media programs

-FB best practices and ideas-Content strategy-Using FB to test products, ideas and email integration.

- PPC basics- Paid features

-Directory listings-Sponsorship basics

Website

Website Design

There is an evolving style ethic for the stand-out and successful e-commerce apparel stores.

Minimalist luxury undertones, web 2.0 clear visual centric interfaces, e-commerce learning?

Website – Design Direction

What Do We Know About Evolving Design Preferences?

Rich product photography

Neutral tones

Large Picture tiles format

Vintage Photography

Social Integration

The website should have an inbuilt social mechanism.

“Upworthy has accumulated 1.3 million Facebook fans who are reader zero in their viral content model .Upworthy promotes stories and makes it easy for people to post the stories on Facebook to share with friends.

The site has two large Share on Facebook buttons and a pop-out box that prompts people to Like its page. This strategy has led to phenomenal growth. In one year,.” – Facebook Developer success stories

Create a rich social shopping experience through social pluggins, virality buttons. And call to action

“Fashion is a highly social category, and people naturally want to share the things they find, want and purchase.” – ShoeDazzle case study

“77% of ecommerce shoppers prefer social media logins”. – Jay Baer of Convince and convert

Social Integration – Few Examples

Opt-in Email

Loud and clearWebsite Pre-Launch StageBuild Customer/Visitor DatabaseOffer incentives to email signup – Vouchers/Coupons

Social Media Buttons

Article sharingPicture Pinning FeaturesAt every step of the customer journey use Like button, Send button, Follow and embed, Share, Facepile, Comments, activity feed etc.

Use FB Apps – Social Graphs

Promote social actions.Tried on – “Rahul Tried on this suit”Closeted – “James closeted this shirt”Steal – “Chander wants to steal that style”Eg: POSEMake it cross platform

Create group sharing/scrapbook building app

Eg: WANTWORTHY

Gamify platform with PBLs

Blog Integration

Mother Blog

Have blog elements feature on the LANDING PAGE.

Have a highly functional and stylized central blog.

Blog is an excellent content management tool and Google loves constantly updated content.

Establish blog as the content bank of stories, content and establish it as the original Social Platform in terms of FB and Pinterst content arising through it.

Don’t use standard vanilla blog theme but don’t go for something too complicated.

Blogger Relations – 2 Strategies

Influencers/Trendsetters have immense pull in the Fashion and apparel business.Find influential bloggers and offer video/podcast/interviews and offer scribed versions with link backs. Authority links.

Roll out design collections with influential bloggers.

Find medium-authority bloggers within the niche and subscribe to their updates.(page rank of 3-5 and alexa rank of 100000-500000)

Search for bloggers on blog catalogues, technorati and google blog search.Link to them through your blog.

Incubate Evangelist Network

Roll out incentive scheme for wanna-be bloggers and young designers.Support blog financially and technically.Use blogs for social reach, personalization, evangelism and linkbacks.

Reward through Blogging awards.

Use Bloggers as content creators and social network content managers.

Why are Bloggers Important

Leandra Medinemanrepeller.com

3.7 page views per monthBooming affiliate network

Susie Lau Works with Gap, Urban Outfitters and H&M on campaigns and special projects.

No.5 most influential blogger in the fashion world.

The Sartorialist.com

Trendsetter in early 2000s of the street style cult.Street style photography evolved as major fashion trend.

Bryan Boy

328,000+ Twitter followerStarted as a blogger – now judge America’s Next Top Model show.

Shared platform with Ana Wintour (Vogue/Devil wears Prada) NY Fashion week

Confessions of a ClosetShaily Khera

One of India’s most prominent style bloggers.

Site SEO – Best Practices

Choose Best keywords/researchFreekeyword.wordtracker.com or Google keyword trackerLong tail keywords and be extremely specific

Do not over-optimize keywords

Have ample back linkingBlogger backlinking, Online groups, Google groups, Craigslist, Link directories, Local directories, Google local directories.

University/Colleges through college programs or roll outs through evangelist network.

Keep on Constant back linking

Research competition back linksUse open site explorer (SEOMOZ tool) to research competition back links and filter to show followed and external links only

Use page authority and domain authority to determine prospective link value (ranking of 30 and above)

Have keywords for all pages and not just for the main page

Keep Content fresh, original and grammatically hygienic

Keyword tag best practicesUse of title tags, headline tags, definite use of alt tags, content tags, meta tags

Use of keyword tagging and links on back linked articles, blogs and author bios

Clear site maps and URL structures

Use of SEM for initial website visibilty

There are around 200 different SEO conditions as laid out by various webmasters. Constant adherence to those guidelines

Social Media – Basic Approach

Use Blog as the content core but FACEBOOK as the central social networking platform

Use social media channels to create cross platform likes and opt-ins to reinforce presence in customer shopping journey

Social media active segment for the email listReward engaged FB users by giving them access to discounts and programs first

Run group discount FB like campaigns through email

Use Email Marketing and FB as complementsUse Social media icons across platforms eg: FB like buttons on emails. Blog links on Twitter feed

FB, Email, Twitter, Pinterest message integrationTest inventory on FB and Pinterst, promote via email campaigns

Time of the email testing could tell when to update FB status Cross channel headline testing through Twitter, Email and FB

Use FB to source email contentUse email to test future FB ads

Use Facebook fan posts in emails and on Twitter

If something has clicked on FB ask people through sorted mail lists to come to FB

Content, Community, Contests

Social AnalyticsUse services such as HOTSUITE to manage social conversationsUse GOOGLE ANALYTICS to measure cross channel impactUse FB ANALYTICS or PAGE LEVER to cull out FB insights

Syndicate content across the web through RSS feeds (for blogposts) and RSS directories

Use FB groups for evangelist network interaction and ideas sharing in addition to FB page

Publish daily content and Youtube videos (embedded and on Youtube channel is short and long format)

Some Facts – Jay Baer

“58% of adults check email in the morning 1st thing (USA) FB is 11%”

“84% of people who like pages on FB have been customers of the company.”

“Only 18% of corporates have social media icons in emails.”

Face Book Stories - Upworthy

Upworthy Example noteworthy as its mission is to pinpoint and distribute internet content on the net without creating own content. Growth is purely referral

Two large Share on Facebook buttons and a pop-out box that prompts people to Like its page

Facepile plugin to show people coming to Upworthy.com which of their friends like the site

Upworthy estimates that about 65% of the US population on Facebook has a friend who likes the site

Publish stories that help people express their identities on Facebook

Upworthy also focuses on quality vs. quantity in stories. The team uses Facebook to identify worthwhile topics

Use A/B testing and analytics to nail headlines

For each piece of content, Upworthy curators create at least 25 headlines. The managing editor chooses four of those and tests them to see how readers respond

Upworthy has learned that a good headline can be the difference between 1,000 or 1,000,000 people reading or viewing a story

It tabulates clicks per share and shares per view

Uses their Facebook Page to engage your audience

StatisticsGrew Upworthy.com to 10.4 million unique visitors in 1 year (as of March 2013)

Face Book Stories - Poshmark

Poshmark is a mobile marketplace opening up people’s closets for shopping

Using Facebook Login, Poshmarkers snap and list Instagram-like pictures of items The Poshmark experience is built around real-time "Posh Parties", virtual themed-based parties where people gather on the app at the same time to shop and sell their fashions

Poshmark also uses age segmentation to find images that appeal to different age groups. It also uses geographic-based audience targeting prior to hosting its city-based live Posh PartiesTests multiple creatives and keep content freshPoshmark uses three primary images while testing another two and targets keywords and brands

App Insights measures paid and organic app installs. Ad Manager measures and analyzes the impact of Poshmark’s mobile app install ads campaigns

Poshmark implemented several Open Graph actions including the Like action.

Face Book Stories - Pose

Since launching with Open Graph, Pose has seen a 5X increase in daily signups for their mobile app and web site by making it easy for people to share the different products and fashion they like with friends

Pose is an integrated mobile app, canvas app and web site about style and trendsFB to attract new users &re-engage existing users

Pose mapped the most frequent interactions people take in their app - pose, comment and love - to Open Graph actions to maximize the number of stories users publish

As more people interact the more the story will appear in news feed

Open graph actionsPose an Item - "Morin Oluwole posed an item"Comment on an Item - "Jeff Sherlock commented on an item"Love an Item - "Kristin Thayer loved an item"

Uniqlo – Pinterest Story

Interactive campaign for scrollersUsing more than 100 shell accounts, a team of more than a dozen simultaneously pinned rows of long graphics in a five-category takeover . As users scrolled, the graphics appeared animated in the style of an old film strip..

http://youtu.be/e5FM-VcE7UA

Winner of Webby 2013 in Best use of social media category

Youtube and co-creation stories

Youtube

Using constant crowd generated videos to generate interest

Using commissioned artists to create content on loose briefs

Co- Creation

Using contents to generate interest in engaged amateurs to be part of the creation process

Other Media Opportunities

IPAD and Kindle

Use Blog content and evangelist network pictures and videos to create IPAD and Kindle magazines

Use Social APPs to promote live action

Audio interviews(podcasts) are great for building profiles, syndication and SEOE-books and e-magazines broaden reachUse the same content for email opt-ins

Publish and distribute through Apple and Kindle store

Mobile

Use Facebook integrated open graph apps for mobile prompting live actionPromote sharing, tagging and pinning

Use foursquare style geo-tagging options for style hotspots and evangelist network street meets

Store Locations

Use store locations to display live social feeds and user feeds.

Use QR code mechanism to register shoppers on the network

Paid Media

PPC Advertisement

Use Google ad words (yahoo Marketing, MSN Adcenter) for pre-launch buzz creation, new user groups, rapid awareness etc

Use predominantly CPC model on Google ad words network and search network

Directory listingYahoo.com,Business.com, BOTW.org, DMOZ.org and other local directories

Product or site sponsorship

Other sites in a similar segmentNewsletter/Blog sponsorshipForum Sponsorship

Word press theme sponsorship

Text Link purchasingGrey areaTextlinkbrokers.comText-link-ads.com

Use web PR to bring in location specific attentionPrweb.comSourcewire.com

What should press releases doCreate controversyMake people feel specialAppeal to a specific market segmentContain a link back to your websiteSuccessful local promotions

Personal PR with bloggers, PR peoplePerhaps even local PR firms

Some more thoughts

How to leverage and create a robust evangelist network?

Leverage the ample supply of fashion design graduates, wannabe bloggers, Youtube musicians and photographers

As a pre-pre launch activity advertise to this target group through FB campaigns, Pages and Groups and on campus

“ Earn Fashion Street Creds – Get rewarded”

Launch paid sponsorships for top few and monetary prizes for the inspirational

Get to use college back links and young talented evangelists

Campaigns to promote virality and buzz

Constant ideas self produced and through evangelist network to promote video and other content virality

Perhaps our own Gangnam style or Oldspice man

Here is an idea:“MEN IN SUIT CHALLENGE”

Short hilarious clips of men in full formal suits taking unusual challenges

1. Diving underwater2. Climbing coconut trees3. Shopping in hugely

crowded mandis4. Undergoing millitary

drills

Crowd-Sourcing Ideas

Use the evangelist network groups (separate from brand page) to crowd source video and content ideas with prizes and a gamified incentives

How can the app interface look?

Launch app in the evangelist network

Have social action buttons

App clearly set-up to create sharing

Thank You

Chandramouli BhattacharyaPh: +919916602825, +919013494223

chandramouli_bhattacharya2013@pgp.isb.educhander.bhattacharya@gmail.com

Notes: This PPT is more of an overview than a complete plan.