This week we gathered all kinds of different fashion labels to get an insight into how the brands differ from each other on Facebook, what different posting strategies they pursue and how they try to help their fans with problems and questions that might come up.
Some of the biggest communities to be found on Facebook
The pages of fashion brands are big, in fact they are some of the biggest pages on Facebook in general. With 39.7m followers Converse is the unrivaled champion. Zara ranks second on the list but has barely half as many fans (20.8m), followed by H&M (18.4m), Nike (17.2m), adidas (16m), Lacoste (13m), Puma (11.3m) and Calvin Klein (8.8m) with the average size being 6.7m.
Due to their size, most pages grow rather slowly. Hugo Boss‘ page gains the most fans per week (0.88%) followed by Timberland (0.87%), Desigual (0.85%), ORSAY (0.81%), Mango (0.78%), Calvin Klein (0.65%) and Only (0.61%)
That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for an already large page to rapidly grow though.
The question is: What causes these spikes? In Converses case it was most likely the announcement of their Rubbertrack gigs. We weren’t able to shortly find an answer for the other two since nothing noteworthy happened on the page.
It’s hard to make people notice
The engagement is pretty low and shows that big pages have a hard time finding interesting content that can draw in a lot of people. Timberland leads the list with 0.7%, Desigual (0.6%), Mango (0.2%), Tally Weijl (0.2%), Escada, Diesel, bruno banani, ORSAY and Marco O’Polo (0,1%) follow.
The post interaction doesn’t look any different: Desigual (0.5%), Timberland (0.4%), Marc O’Polo (0.2%), Hugo Boss (0.1%), Mango and ORSAY (0,09%), Calvin Klein and bruno banani (0,07%) and Diesel (0,06%) are part of the top group.
None of those values are astounding. They just strengthen what we already expected: people aren’t fans of the page because of their posts, the pictures it publishes or the questions it asks. Most simply seem to like a page for it’s brands reputation. But that doesn’t mean that interesting posting strategies can’t change that for the better.
Almost always “on-topic”, apart from when it’s not
Quite a few pages post content multiple times a day. On top of the list: Tally Weijl with 5.3 posts. Followed by Jack & Jones (3.6), Dolce & Gabbana (3.3), Mango (2.9), Diesel and H&M (2.4), Timberland and bruno banani (1.8), United Colors of Benetton (1.6) and Bench (1.3) .
Analyzing the posts per day graphs we found something really interesting. Not only do most seem to post in waves (post a lot on one day and significantly less on others), but there are some who even knock news pages out of the park with the amount of posts published on a single day.
This big spike portrays Diesels activity on March 14th. They published 117 posts within 24 hours. Something that is unheard of. We went over the data of over 30 news-pages and none of them reached a number this high. They ended up being close with multiple pages having 100+ posts, yet never reached this insane amount of content.
But what was the page posting about? It was not a campaign, or anything for that matter. The page basically kept posting pictures of a launch party hosted by the iD-magazine and added them to an album. Thats nothing negative, but unfortunately for us there’s not much to see here. But what about all the other, smaller spikes?
Most of the time they stand for the same thing the Diesel spike stands for. The difference is that other pages are more centered. While Diesel focused on publishing pictures without a description (apart from telling the fan who shot the picture), Dolce&Gabanna combines that with a comment regarding the pictured person and their collections
Dolce & Gabbana shared a picture 2/23/14
… or promoting their live stream.
Dolce & Gabbana shared a picture 2/23/14
Meanwhile a lot of the spikes of H&M’s page are explained by it being multi lingual. Most pages only post in English or end up having different pages for different countries. H&M feels that this isn’t necessary so they will often promote the same product in multiple languages.
Considering this fact the 2.4 posts they publish on a daily basis seem a bit low.
A brands image can always be found in the posting strategy of a page. It is impressive that cat content is (nearly) nowhere to be found. Every single post is more or less related to the topic. Sure, that can be stretched by simply publishing a picture of a well dressed person, but at the end of the day these posts are still somewhat on-topic. Nowadays there are quite a few pages that end up having to use unrelated content to boost their post count. The closest we were able to find were pictures such as this one…
The focus clearly is not on the product. Then again, to some extend it’s still product related. It’s really hard to tell what actually qualifies as cat-content and what doesn’t. Way less obvious than in any other industry.
But as we know, there will always be exceptions. In this ranking it’s Tally Weijl. The page doesn’t focus on cat-content, but it’s noticeable that it is part of their strategy.
Here the goal clearly is to to make the fan feel comfortable, not to promote a product .
Another thing that is immediately noticeable are advertisements. The pages notify their fans that new collections hit the store and are available for sale. But something is different to most other fields: you will never, ever find a price tag. While other pages usually use the price to promote something by using ridiculously huge numbers to convince potential customers of the “good” deal they are offering you will have a hard time finding something similar on Facebook pages of fashion brands.
UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON shared a picture 3/20/14
One thing that surprised us is the lack of campaigns, something other beauty companies (such as makeup labels) often end up using to promote new products. Even though pictures or videos of fashion shows somewhat take that place, it still doesn’t feel like they have the same impact.
A lot of spam that needs to be dealt with
Quite a few pages have wall posts disabled. Part of that group are Escada, G-Star, adidas and Hugo Boss.
The fastest service is provided by H&M with an average response-time of 1h. The page only reacts to 60% of the user posts though. Jack&Jones on the other hand does so for 80%, but takes way longer (8.1h).
In general you can say that anything below 10h and above 50% can be considered decent support. It’s clear that you cant always respond immediately, and there will be quite a few user posts that are not really worth reacting to.
Especially when it comes to pages this big you often end up with spam on the wall.
Here the page should simply delete the posts to keep the quality up and make life for all parties easier.
As far as speed is concerned we have to take into consideration that these pages are international, but most likely organized and operated by a small group of people living in the same country. So there will be a delay when asking a question at 8AM German time because that usually means that it’s night in several other countries. Support can only be provided in that case if you have a proper monitoring tool that immediately notifies you in case of an important event.
The fact that there are quite a few pages that end up having below or slightly above 10h service time is impressive. Part of that group are New Yorker (2h), Converse (4.3h), Timberland (7h), Jack&Jones (8.1h), ZARA (9.6h), Mexx and Tally Weijl (11h).
Even though not being top notch in either category, Tommy Hilfigers service can be considered good as well. The page responds to 61% of the fan post in 16h on average. Unfortunately there are also pages who do not provide a proper support, Miss Sixty and bruno banani being two of them.
Neither one reacts to any fan posts. They have the option enabled and by doing so give their fans the illusion that their opinion is heard and questions are going to be answered. In that case a page should simply turn the option off so their followers don’t feel neglected.
Conclusion
The fact that cat content is hardly used and the service, considering all the spam, still being decent, are positive aspects. But that’s not enough. A lot of them should try to put a little bit more effort into online campaigns. Taking a picture of a model at some fashion show doesn’t involve any work, it’s a matter of seconds. Maybe they should try to mimic makeup brands a little a more, just to spice it up a bit and find new ways to entertain and win new followers.
All calculations were made with Fanpage Karma. Fanpage Karma is an online tool used to analyze social media profiles. Users can monitor an unlimited number of Facebook pages, Twitter profiles or YouTube channels. Either their own or those of competitors. Fanpage Karma provides valuable insights on posting strategies and performance. It gives hints on how to improve engagement.
Want to analyze the pages yourself? Head over to Fanpage Karma and try it for free!
Featured Picture: CC-BY Rhiannon