The Fashion Marketers Guide to Instagram

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The Fashion Marketer’s
Guide to
BUILD A COMMUNITY DRIVE ENGAGEMENT AMPLIFY YOUR REACH

Part 1 – Introduction1. WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS GUIDE
2. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

1. WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS GUIDE
It’s no surprise that #fashion ranks among Instagram’s 25
most popular hashtags — and that an increasing number
of fashion brands are embracing the social network as
core to their marketing strategies.
A 2014 survey of 249 top fashion brands found that 93%
of them had Instagram accounts — an increase from 63%
in July 2013.
While some fashion brands are just getting started, others
are dominating — amassing millions of followers, likes, and
shares. According to a recent analysis of the top-10 brands
rocking Instagram Video, five were fashion brands:
Vogue (1.7M followers)
Victoria’s Secret (4.4M followers),
Michael Kors (2.1M followers),
Billabong (305K followers)
and Aeropostale (1M followers)
With more than 200M members and an engagement
rate that’s 25% higher than any other social platform, the
Instagram community brings a wealth of opportunity to
fashion marketers and community managers.
But here are the challenges
1. Instagram is unique from other social channels and
requires dedicated strategic investment. Community
managers — heavily invested in Facebook, Twitter, and
Pinterest — need guidance and direction to shortcut the
process of starting from scratch.
Instagram has transformed the way that fashion brands inspire their audiences. It’s the one
social network that connects aesthetics with creativity and social engagement — the heart
and soul of the fashion community.
1
Webstagram - http://web.stagram.com/hot
2
Lucky Magazine - http://www.luckymag.com/style/2014/03/instagram-fashion-brands
3
AdWeek - http://www.adweek.com/videowatch/fashion-brands-dominate-instagram-video-157712
4
Instagram - http://blog.instagram.com/post/80721172292/200m
5
L2 - http://www.l2thinktank.com/research/social-platforms-2013
2. There are a lot of awesome brands on Instagram,
making the competition for audience attention fierce.
Brands need a structured, high-impact approach to
visual storytelling.
We wrote this guide to empower fashion marketers with
a blueprint for navigating these challenges — to help
fashion-forward brands become influencers among
communities of trendsetters, shoppers, and influential
fashion bloggers.
Let’s get started.

2. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
You’ll learn how to make more out of your Instagram community — regardless of
whether you’re new to the space or an Instagram power-brand.
If you’re just getting started — we’ll illuminate the qualities of Instagram’s most
successful fashion brands. If you’re already up and running — we’ll teach you how to
amplify your already-strong performance.
This guide introduces the nuts and bolts of a
high-impact Instagram marketing strategy.
You’ll learn how to:
Create a vibrant Instagram community
Establish and measure Instagram-specific goals
Implement a successful hashtag strategy
Launch a high-impact promotion
Identify and replicate qualities of the most
successful fashion brands
We’ve also included:
Interviews with
community managers
at innovative social brands
Recommendations from
top fashion bloggers and
Instagram power users

Part 2 – the Landscape
1. BUILDING A COMMUNITY
2. ESTABLISHING GOALS

1. BUILDING A COMMUNITY
WHAT DRIVES SUCCESS ON INSTAGRAM?
Instagram is a platform for building emotional bonds — a conversation-driven
community and opportunity for brands to illuminate their personalities, values, passions,
and ethos.
The more you try to sell, the more your audiences will shy away and become disengaged.
Marketing on Instagram is about becoming a conversation leader — not highlighting
your products.
The first step to success on Instagram is visual storytelling. Your photos need to be
awesome — to communicate more than visual appeal.
For inspiration, take a look at surf-fashion and lifestyle brand company RipCurl. The
brand’s highly-engaging Instagram posts regularly generate tens of thousands of likes
each.
Each post is designed with a story in mind — to capture the heart and soul of the
brand’s followers: surfing enthusiasts and athletes.
Of all social media channels, Instagram is the least-advertising
heavy. Why? Instagram isn’t designed to drive traffic off-platform.
Even Instagram’s new advertising offerings — Sponsored Posts —
are meant to keep audiences engaged within the platform.
6
Instagram - http://instagram.com/about-ads
Success on Instagram
means forging strong
bonds with your
user base. Be casual,
comfortable, and
authentic.

Take crisp, quality photos
regularly. Make them pretty —
irresistible. Integrate glitter,
cupcakes, white backgrounds,
macarons, ocean sunsets, fresh
blooms, and balloons. Travel
the world. Take pictures of the
eiffel tower and a cool door
in Barcelona. Show off what
inspires your brand as well as
what you have in stock.
— Lindsey Herzog
Mpls blogger & Wardrobe Stylist
Ruby Girl
http://instagram.com/lindseyherzog

The best performing brands
on Instagram don’t just post
product or editorial type shots.
Personally, I don’t care to
follow feeds filled with that. I
want to see real-time behind
the scenes looks into the
brands “life” and follow them
along on their day.
— Marissa Meade
Fashion Blogger; StyleCusp
http://instagram.com/stylecusp

Instagram should be a visual
diary of your brand story.
Show the design inspiration
and the team that makes your
collection happen (not just the
name on the label). Show what
everyone does to demonstrate
all the work that goes into your
collection.
— Mariana Leung
Fashion Blogger; MsFabulousNYC
http://instagram.com/
msfabulousnyc

1. BRAND INTERVIEW
MEET THREADLESS
Threadless, an online community for artists to
create tee shirts, exemplifies these core values —
authenticity, transparency, and a strong audience
connection. Their secret?
It’s no secret at all — stop thinking like a marketer,
and instead, think like a community-builder. Embrace
Instagram for the platform’s ability to inspire
conversations, not sales. Have trust in the fact that
sales will happen at some point, down the conversion
funnel.
As you start to build relationships with your user base,
be generous. Always seek to express your thanks and
pay your gratitude forward Even though you can’t
give everyone a material reward, you can empower
your audience with genuine compliments. It’s this
positivity, after all, that makes the fashion community
so strong.
Kyle Geib,
Marketing
Coordinator
Craig Shimala,
Multimedia
Specialist

Tell us about your Instagram
strategy? How did you get started?

When instagram first launched,
we signed up for an account right
away. We were posting here and
there but realized that we should be
more dedicated to our account.
We tested some ideas and very
quickly saw what was most
successful: a behind the scenes
look into our brand — a dog doing
something funny at the office,
a look into our t-shirt printing
process, ora photoshoot.
Sales was never the strategy.
We highlight our artists and our
community first and foremost.
We often invite the community to
create street art on our building —
and love sharing these photos on
Instagram.
We’re much more casual than
we are on Facebook, Twitter, and
Tumblr — which are quite sales
and web-traffic focused. We post
maybe once — max twice — a day.
We aim to be fun, casual, inspiring,
and free.
One of the things I personally
like about our Instagram strategy
— in terms of posting frequency
and tone — is that our approach
is similar to what your friends are
posting. We don’t post on a set,
rigid schedule. It’s genuine — we
prioritize showing above telling
my illuminating what makes
our company culture awesome.
What we’re ultimately posting is
happening in the moment.
One of the most common
comments that I see is ‘Can I work
here?’ Our Instagram audiences.
People really want to be part of the
brand — which is awesome since
we’re a community based design
company.
Social is not a one-way megaphone.
It’s an interactive channel where
there’s a person on the other side of
it. Interaction is key and important
to a brand. You don’t want to seem
like your head up on the clouds
with information and not taking
anything. You want your customers
and artist community to know that
you’re reading their responses and
mentions and interacting with them.
That’s why I make an effort to search
hashtags related to our brand.
How does your Instagram
marketing strategy compare with
other social channels?
Is there anything else you’d like
to share with fellow fashion
marketers?

2. ESTABLISHING GOALS
WHAT SHOULD YOU MEASURE?
A successful Instagram strategy is driven by on-platform
engagement. Brands can systematize and amplify engagement by
monitoring the following key performance indicators (KPIs).
1. NEW FOLLOWER GROWTH
2. CONVERSATIONS & COMMENTS
3. LIKES
4. BRAND MENTIONS

2.1. NEW FOLLOWER GROWTH
An expanding follower-base indicates growth in your brand presence
and influence.
Canadian-based fashion brand Dynamite Clothing
recently experienced a sudden spike in traffic —
more than triple the typical number of daily new
followers.
The reason?
Tip: Look for systematic growth over time, in addition to
daily spikes — the result of specific campaigns or highly
engaging posts.
The spike happened because we ran
a cross promotion on Facebook. I
encouraged our Facebook audience
to follow Dynamite on Instagram —
posting a picture from Instagram on
Facebook. We try to push this type of
cross-platform promotion — to generate
growth — as often as possible.
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
FOLLOWERTREND
New Followers by Day
2014–03–13 2014–03–28 2014–04–12 2014–04–27 2014–05–12 2014–05–27
DATE
— Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

We get a ton of comments and questions.
When we get new followers, they’ll go back
and comment on old posts — conversations
that we’d miss without Piqora’s Conversation
Manager tool.
Tip: Look at conversations from a qualitative as
well as a quantitative perspective.
2.2. CONVERSATIONS & COMMENTS
Comment counts reflect your brand’s ability to inspire
audience. In addition to analyzing the number of
comments you receive, take a close look at what your
audiences are saying.
Actual screenshots from Piqora's Instagram Analytics & Conversation Manager
— Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

Tip: Look for variance in ‘likes’ between your posts to see what
your followers are and aren’t responding to.
2.3. LIKES
Likes provide insight
into your brand’s
engagement level. Are
people responding to
your Instagram posts
positively?
For instance, Dynamite’s most ‘liked’ profile
media includes artistic displays of summary,
seasonal items. These images combine
the best of multiple worlds: beautiful
products, compelling presentations, and an
appreciation for the Spring/Summer sun.
Dynamite’s most engaged Instagram users
are looking forward to getting outside and
looking awesome.
But that’s not all. Behind Dynamite’s most-
liked Instagram posts is a social component:
We’ll post something interesting
and socially engaging and ask users
to tag their friends in the image
to inspire virality. This generates a
huge reaction in terms of likes and
engagement
Social
Component:
Ain’t that the
truth? #Tag your
#friends who
need a reminder.
#DynamiteStyle
#imtoosexy
Social
Component:
Sounds like an
excellent plan,
am I right? Tag
your friends
who’d love this!
#DynamiteStyle
Social
Component:
Pick your fave
- #mint, #black
or #pink? Tag
your#BFFs
to share.
#DynamiteStyle
#bikini #summer” — Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

2.3. BRAND MENTIONS
Are people incorporating your brand into everyday conversations?
The ability to monitor the answer to this question
is invaluable. Study after study shows that word
of mouth is a marketing force of nature — the
single-most important variable that influences a
company’s long-term growth and success. With
more than 200M registered users, Instagram is a
major conversation hub.
It’s surprised me how much our
customers love us. The number of
hashtag-driven comments we’ve received
has been unbelievable. It’s amazing to
see people supporting the brand without
us pushing the conversation.
There are two ways to monitor brand mentions:
#1: Monitor how Instagram users are tagging your brand in ongoing, natural conversations.
Pay attention to whether this feedback is positive, negative, or a mix of both. Reinvest
these analyses into your own Instagram or brand strategy.
#2: Analyze conversations within #hashtags related to your brand. These may be official
hashtags or conversation hubs that are tangentially related.
Tip: track all your relevant hashtags with Piqora
7
TechCrunch - http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/15/the-secret-science-behind-big-data-and-word-of-mouth
— Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

Part 3 – Getting Started
1. IDEAS TO TEST
2. OPTIMIZING HASHTAGS
3. LAUNCHING PROMOTIONS

1. IDEAS TO TEST
By now, you’re familiar with what Instagram
audiences care about — strong visual narratives,
community-focused content, and unparalleled
creativity. At the heart of a successful Instagram
strategy is a strong connection between your
followers and your brand.
This relationship-driven approach requires careful
experimentation — if you have an idea test it. This
type of exploration is essential for determining
what your audiences love.
1. POSTING FREQUENCY
2. MULTIMEDIA TYPES
3. DIFFERENT FILTERS
4. TAGGING LOCATIONS
One of the most important
ways for marketers to learn
is to test. We continuously
test and test and test as many
variables as we can.
— Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

Most of our engagement comes at night. Our
target audience includes working women who
are posting after work hours in the evenings and
on the weekends.
We could have a super awesome beautiful
image post. But if we post it at the wrong time,
it could bomb.
3.1. POSTING FREQUENCY
Try posting content at varying frequencies and at different
times of of day.
Timing is crucial.
From top down
the images
were posted at
06:41am, 06:11pm
and 5:35pm
— Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

3.2 MULTIMEDIA TYPES
Experiment with different
forms of multimedia (video
and images) to see what your
audiences love. Remember
that there is no one-size-fits-all
approach to success. Threadless,
for instance, has found minimal
success with video:
Videos don’t perform that
well with our Instagram
following, for some reason.
It seems like we could take
a still of a video and post
that up and it’ll perform
better
7
AdWeek -www.adweek.com/videowatch/fashion-brands-dominate-instagram-video-157712
A one-size-fits-all approach, however, is far from successful. Plenty of fashion brands are rocking Instagram
Video to showcase behind-the-scenes runway events, photoshoots, and brand-related events.
Aeropostale, Michael Kors, Billabong, and Victoria’s Secret recently made the top-10 list for fashion brands
on Instagram Video, according to AdWeek8
.
As one example, Aeropostale created a slideshow showcasing the brand’s summer lookbook. The video is a
simple compilation of photos — a slideshow that almost any fashion brand can create on a minimal budget.
The following snippet from Michael Kors
showcases a woman packing for a summer
trip to Shanghai— with a suitcase full of
awesome fashion items. What’s important
to keep in mind about this video is that it’s
professionally produced, incorporating music
and staged visuals.
The video is short yet colorful, vibrant,
inspiring, and energetic. It generated the
following engagement as of May 16, 2014:
57,774 Total Actions
2.72 Engagement Rate
56,780 Likes
999 Comments
The brand’s followers, loving this collection
of summer 2014 fashion ideas, were heavily
engaged with the content — generating the
following performance as of May 16, 2014:
64,774 total actions
6.45% Engagement Rate
63,242 Likes
1,532 Comments
— Craig Shimala
Multimedia Specialist,
Threadless

Tip: For a crash course on choosing Instagram photos,
check out the following resources:
3.3. TEST DIFFERENT FILTERS
Instagram is a power tool for casual and professional
photographers, alike. Experiment with different moods and
settings to complement your brand’s marketing goals. It may
make sense to loop in your design team to seek feedback and
guidance on image editing.
What I love (but infuriates old-school
photographers) is that anyone can make
an interesting photo of the most mundane
subjects. With the apps, filters, editing
capabilities on your phone, it allows everyone
to post great images in real time of their life.
To me, it is celebrating every moment, and
recognizing it as art
How to Choose the Best Instagram Filter
for your Images
Mashable author Stephanie Buck explores
17 different Instagram filters and the
relative effects of each of them.
TechCrunch guide
Instagram 6.0 Seduces Pro
Photographers with Adjustable Filters
and 9 New Effects (TechCrunch) - In
June 2014, Instagram introduced a
series of new filters designed to engage
photography enthusiasts. Josh Constine’s
TechCrunch guide will teach you how to
use them. Adjustable filters will help you
customize effects.
1.
2.
— Mariana Leung
Stylist and Fashion Blogger
ShareSomeStyle
http://instagram.com/lindseyherzog

3.4. TAG A LOCATION
(or at least mention one in your post)
Inspire your audience’s imaginations by
tagging your images and products all over
the world. If a beautiful image was taken
somewhere, let your audience’s know.
Shoe retailer TOMS has positioned this tactic as
a springboard for launching its ‘#travelingTOMS’
campaign where users -- and the brand -- mention
the many places where these shoes travel.
Tip: Test elements that you think your Instagram
audience will love. Look to your users for
inspiration, get your community involved, and
have fun.

1. OPTIMIZING HASHTAGS
GAUGING IMPACT
Hashtags are key to generating brand awareness — which
is why it’s so important to choose your hashtags carefully.
But brands often find themselves wondering — what is
the optimal number of hashtags to accompany each post,
and what is the minimum number required to make a
difference? What opportunities exist?
We analyzed 150,000 Instagram posts across 200 brands
and uncovered the following:
By using just 3 hashtags, brands can gain a 110% increase
in likes on their Instagram posts, while adding 5 results in
a 180% increase. So, three hashtags should be considered
the bare minimum, but more is better: for optimal levels
of engagement marketers should strive to add up to 7
relevant hashtags.
The report also found that relevant hashtags can increase
the number of likes by up to 200%.
Hashtags are a critical part of a brand’s Instagram strategy, but here’s the problem — brands are struggling to use this
resource in a high-impact way (73%, according to a recent Piqora study).
Tip: For more information, check out Piqora’s Instagram
hashtag report here.

CHOOSING HASHTAGS
Put yourself in the shoes of your Instagram audience. Hashtags shouldn’t be designed to sell; rather,
they should be fun, interactive, and engaging. Learn which hashtags your Instagram community is
already using — especially influencers — and connect these hashtags to your brand.
Fashion brands are in a unique position in that their ‘brand labels’ are highly compelling — generating
enthusiasm, conversation, and engagement. Community managers should feel free to test hashtags
that are directly tied to the brand. Here are some examples to inspire you:
TOMS
FREE PEOPLE
MARC JACOBS
WARBY PARKER
Tip: Hashtags should be concise
and catchy — avoid long
phrases, as these can be tough
to remember. Remember that
nobody ‘owns’ a hashtag on
Instagram — but your brand can
promote and encourage the
adoption of them.

ENCOURAGING
ADOPTION
Audiences will not instantly know that they need to use a
particular hashtag — even if your brand has a strong word-of-
mouth presence. Dynamite users, for instance, frequently use the
#Dynamite hashtag, even though the brand’s ‘official’ hashtag
is #dynamitestyle. Dynamite’s marketing team actively teachers
shoppers to use the #dynamitestyle hashtag.
This process involves promoting hashtags across multiple
marketing channels — in a way that is connected with your core
brand.
Especially on Instagram, guidance is key to inspiring engagement.
We promote it in store. We
promote it when we host
an event. We promote it
in the stores. We’re slowly
teaching our customers to use
#dynamitestyle.
— Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

2. LAUNCHING
PROMOTIONS
1. Clear Goal and Objectives
2. Simple Rules and Creative that
Explains Them
3. A Contest Landing Page that
Maximizes Participation
4. Use Hashtag Tracking
Software to Monitor
Participation and Notify
Winners
Promotions are powerful for inspiring brand
awareness and engagement. A structured, user-
optimized workflow can help generate a boost in
fans and likes — whatever outcome is most important
for your brand to achieve.
9
Aeropostale - www.aeropostale.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=28688836
Contests provide a great way to inspire brand engagement, boost
your follower-base, and create user generated content. Every
successful giveaway requires the four components:
The month of
November 2013
inspired several
peaks in new
followers —
likely due to a
mix of holiday
marketing
initiatives
(including the
promotion).
Promotions, contests, and giveaways can also complement ongoing brand
initiatives. During the holidays, in November 2013, Aeropostale hosted a month-
long ‘wishlist’ giveaway1 across its social media channels (including Instagram).

1. CLEAR GOAL AND OBJECTIVES
With our contests, we aim to inspire a boost in
followers. We want to make the entry process as
easy as possible while growing our community and
increasing engagement.
We started asking contest entrants to tag their
friends as a condition to entering in the giveaway.
Define your goals upfront — before launching your giveaway. Typical
Instagram contest goals include:
Growing your community
Generating brand awareness
Sourcing lifestyle content and user-generated marketing assets
Identify and engage with influencers
It is better to be focused than to tackle all goals at once — for instance, if you’re
generating user-generated marketing assets, you may want submitted media to
be evaluated by a panel of judges. This submission process may decrease the
submission count, however.
— Laura Carmosino
Community Manager,
Dynamite Clothing

2. SIMPLE RULES AND
CREATIVE THAT
EXPLAINS THEM
Contest creative needs to be visually appealing and relevant to your audience.
Host rules on your website where audiences can easily find them — in some
states, this accessibility may be a legal requirement. There may be more legal
requirements, so make sure to evaluate your contest rules with a lawyer.
MyHabit did a great job coming up with a creative theme for their
contest, making it fun, on-brand, and reasonably easy to enter.
They selected an appropriate hashtag, gave away a valuable and
desirable prize, added inspiring photos to the contest creative
and showcased entries on the landing page (not pictured).
Great UGC; Highly influential Instagrammer Alyson Haley submitted this
stellar photo for Hobo Bag’s Carry This Wear That contest. She’s even
promoting the contest to her 12K followers.

3. A CONTEST
LANDING PAGE
THAT MAXIMIZES
PARTICIPATION
Especially if you are encouraging entries across multiple
social media channels, it is important to host your material
on a central hub. You can then work with fellow bloggers and
influencers to promote this page — and drive paid media to
it.
Design pages to incorporate user-generated material in real
time — to emphasize the life behind your promotion and
brand. On the left is an example from Aeropostale’s Wishlist
giveaway.
4. USE HASHTAG
TRACKING
SOFTWARE
TO MONITOR
PARTICIPATION AND
NOTIFY WINNERS
In order to see the participants for your contest hashtags
and pick a winner, you need a hashtag tracking tool (like
Piqora). A good hashtag tracking tool will provide a list of
participants and their photo entries.
You’ll also be able to see participants for each day of the
promotion (for daily/weekly prize promotions), which will
help you to easily moderate and publish the photo entries
on a contest landing page.

Experiment — look to your
favorite brands and favorite
Instagram influencers for
inspiration. Stand out, try
something new, and work
with fashion bloggers to build
visibility. Creativity will always
win.
— Piqora Team
For more inspiration, check
out The Definitive Guide to
Instagram Photo Contests.

The Fashion Marketers Guide to Instagram

The Fashion Marketers Guide to Instagram

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The Fashion Marketers Guide to Instagram