Creating a strategy for social media: perspectives from the fashion industry

Social media have altered the communication landscape and significantly impacted on marketing communication. Research suggests that with the rise of social media, marketing communication has been democratised, and the power has shifted from those in marketing to the individuals and communities that create and consume content on social media and redistribute it across a variety of channels. Yet the implications of social media are still largely unknown among practitioners and managers. Interest in the use of social media in marketing is growing. In particular with the recent special issues on social media published by marketing journals, the body of research is rapidly developing. But despite the growing interest, there are no specific theories that focus on social-media marketing in the fashion industry, and limited empirical research exists on the implications of social media in the fashion sector overall. Research in this area has the potential to inform both further study and practice in relation to the use of social media in fashion-marketing communications. This study explores the development, implications and impact of social media as a part of marketing communications in the fashion industry through case studies and key-informant interviews. In particular, the aim is to build an empirically grounded framework that enables the understanding, explanation and description of the process of building a social-media strategy. The findings arising from this research can help practitioners and managers to make sense of the social-media environment and better understand how to design social-media activities and effectively use social media in marketing communications. As the field is emerging, the methodologies, theories and their application are likely to evolve considerably.