Fashion Trends On Social Media: Miss It, Miss Out

How luxury brands are wooing a new generation of consumers in this highly competitive social media age.

- Germaine Cheong

In a world as fickle as fashion, one day you’re in – and the next, you’re out. And it appears that, these days, being “in” means leading the social media front in terms of digital innovation.

No stranger to this brave new world that has largely been approached in trepidation by the luxury sector, Burberry has been the poster child in this Internet age. In April, it became the first luxury brand to use social media app Snapchat’s Discover channel – a feature so far used only by online media outlets like Buzzfeed and Vice to create original content.

Once thought of as gimmicky, social media is now more crucial than ever in a luxury brand’s advertising campaign, since mobile gadgets are often a consumer’s first point of contact with the world. What were once closed-door events have turned into marketing extravaganzas – and those who don’t cash in on social media’s breadth of reach will only lose out. The point is to capitalise on millennials’ curiosity – and the prevailing fear of missing out. “To stay true to their luxury ethos would mean that the luxury brands stay off the Web, or at best have only an informational, brand-building presence on it, and limit interactive communication on the Web or social media to a select group of loyal, and by-invitation only customers. But the challenge is to resist the temptation to join in, when most of your competitors have begun making that switch,” says Seshan Ramaswami, associate professor of marketing education at Singapore Management University.