July 5, 2013
As Paris Fashion Week struts to a close two vastly different brands will be congratulating themselves on a successful week. Chanel may be a fashion week regular, but this year saw a new contender take to the stage (or should that be catwalk?) as H&M produced its first ever Paris Fashion Week show!
H&M and Chanel may have shown their collection to the fashion elite but their views on social media couldn’t be more different. Karl Lagerfeld summed up his view on those who use social media: “They lose a lot of time these people, and they become stupid because they nearly tell you they’re going to the bathroom, eh?” H&M, on the other hand, takes a slightly more liberal view that “millions of H&M fans and followers share ideas and opinions and get quick answers to their queries” through social media. However, as everyone knows, actions speak louder than words – and on that note Alex has taken a few moments to reflect on how these two fashion giants use Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
H&M has attracted more than 15 million fans to its Facebook page and posts several updates a day. A mixture of product promotion, blogger outreach and competitions give a varied appearance to the page. Engagement is high – with posts regularly gaining thousand of likes (and two posts, both on the 24th June receiving nearly 42,000 likes between them!)
An interesting feature is the H&M Autumn Collection 2013 Fashion Show app which live streamed its fashion show from Paris in February – a way of rewarding fans and encouraging them to re-visit the brand page.
Chanel’s Facebook page has garnered a respectable 9.5 million likes and updates its page a couple of times a week. Content is highly visual – but unlike H&M focuses solely on fashion and the Chanel brand. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a high end luxury retailer posts don’t promote products but rather foster a sense of brand identity and exclusivity. Content is very similar to that posted on Twitter and Google Plus.
H&M has separate Twitter feeds for the different countries in which it operates; however, branding is consistent and obviously centrally controlled. There is a main corporate account, which tweets a mixture of product images, blog links and other content, and a separate customer service profile. But both accounts respond to few @mentions. Even the dedicated customer service feed is unusually quiet, replying to only a few customers a day, especially when compared to competitors such as ASOS.
Chanel’s official Twitter profile, which has a nearly 2 million followers, is full of rich, visual imagery with links to videos as well as pictures of clothes, celebrities, fashion shows, campaigns and backstage ‘candid’ shots. However, where we may say that H&M’s interaction with fans is low, for Chanel it is almost non-existent! Rather, the fashion brand prefers to retweet fashion leaders such as Vogue. Unlike H&M, Chanel’s lack of proactive fan engagement is in line with the direction taken by other high fashion retailers such as Burberry.
Pinterest is an interesting platform. Obviously geared towards visual content you would expect fashion retailers to jump on the chance to show themselves off on the platform. As we have already discussed there are plenty of opportunities for luxury retailers, as Burberry boasts almost double the followers of Topshop, the No2 UK fashion brand on Pinterest. Yet, neither H&M nor Chanel seem to have an official, active profile. It has been suggested though that Chanel actually leads the luxury retailers on Pinterest in terms of pins, repins and total impressions – generating on average 400 pins and more than 3,600 repins a day!
© Chanel “Chanel logo” Captures. July 2013.
© H&M “H&M logo” Captures. July 2013.
What do you think of how Chanel and H&M use social media? Tweet us your thoughts via @iftweeter!