Twitter in fashion

You see the little blue icon in the bottom bar of our web site? What do you think it does?

What it doesn’t do

- It won’t make you instantly buy Lilou scarves and handbags.

- It won’t zap your neurons and turn you into an overnight Lilou evangelist.

- The T button won’t force you to support our socially responsible policies and it won’t persuade you to alter your shopping habits overnight.

What it does do

When you hit the T button only one thing happens instantly – it will take you to our Twitter page @Liloucolours. (The Twitter box on the right sidebar is a window onto that page.) And from there?

Well, if you follow us regularly on Twitter, one thing’s for sure, we won’t swamp you with Lilou business news and hard sell offers.

Oh, I thought Twitter was for spreading the word about the world of fashion?

It is! Twitter is all about spreading the word, but not in the way the majority of fashionistas think.

The irony of Twitter in business is that it’s fairly rubbish when used for instant broadcasting wall-to-wall business news announcements – and a brilliant tool for slowly engaging, educating, entertaining folks.

Reverse back to the core value of Twitter. When it first arrived on the scene, wow, breaking news, “@James123 Drinking coffee in Starbucks”. Such earth shattering news could be published on Twitter instantaneously and picked up by at least 3 people. Then move it forward. Think “Oil spills and new GAP logo scandals” national / international events which unfold in real time on Twitter followed by millions who really do care! 2 extremes, but in both scenarios, Twitter is a powerful instant news broadcasting tool.

As it developed, Twitter folk picked up on @James123 coffee drinking habits and his friends would tweet back “See you in 5, order me a quad frappo-la-choc with extra cinnamon” and they would go join him. Likewise, the international news that gets broadcast on Twitter is now discussed by thousands of folks who really do care. And the gut-reaction 2-way tweeter chatter in itself becomes part of mainstream news as tweets are re-broadcast on news programs and radio shows. Twitter’s an engaging, viral tool with teeth.

Now fast forward.

As with all good platforms, people try to find ways of harnessing Twitter’s power and immediacy for other things.

The fashion industry is just one sector that is rapidly embracing Twitter for business. From what we have seen, though, perhaps that should read “has tried to embrace Twitter for business”.

Twitter is Social media is not broadcast media.

Judging by our Twitter feeds, loads and loads of fashionistas are using social media exclusively to broadcast their news, as if they were CNN.

“Breaking news: everyone is invited to pick through the dying embers of a discounted sock campaign at store X… Public information announcement: Did you know store Z offers free / 50% off / zero yadda yadda on their yadda yadda product line? “

And when you tweet back with a question and get no reply… what sort of impression does that make?

Or worse – you get automatically broadcast spam straight into your direct message box

I receive a DM (Direct Message) and get all excited that someone who follows me wants to talk to me. But that buzz soon fizzles when I read some auto-tweeted spam, “Thx for following @soandso check out all our products and styles at xyz.com or Thanks for the follow, if you have not yet LIKED us on Facebook, pls check out our Facebook page.

So what are they thinking? (And remember, these DM’s come from companies who I have chosen to follow!)

1 – I must be a robot and I did not check their info before deciding to follow them.
2 – I have a perverted addiction to spam
3 – They are not thinking at all – most likely option.

Step back and think about that one-way non-interactive approach. Why on earth would the general public, us, or fashion aficionados bother going on Twitter to follow a company we might like to buy from, be educated by, or want to find out about, just to be spoon fed one-way news till it comes out of our ears? Boring – and we may as well just set up RSS feeds, or subscribe to Reuters and soak up more interesting news.

The point of Twitter now, is that it is a platform to engage, not pummel potential customers, existing fans, peers, competitors. Twitter is brilliant for wall-to-wall chat, questions, answers and two-way conversation.

But unlike the Tweet button, building relationships is not instant – it takes time

And it seems that unless a business is prepared to do the social thing, and invest time getting to know fellow tweeters and Twitter followers, Twitter is a waste of a good tool.

So how does one harness Twitter for business and get as good at Twitter as (not fashion) designer @FrancoiseM?

Time and effort is the magic Twitter formula

In an ideal world, we would have a magic Twitter formula that instantly and effortlessly transformed tweeters of the world into paid-up members of a Lilou shopping and love fest – and to gain real advantage over competitors, only we would have the formula. But that’s not realistic, and not very sociable!

As best we can, we stick to a “Twitter for business formula” that has been worked on by tweeters @ProjectBook (who don’t actually inhabit the fashion world!) 90% chit chat, 9% spreading the word about other companies and experts in the fashion world, and 1% of the time we talk about news and progress in our own business. Any other approach, we feel, is inappropriate and makes Twitter a boring place for everyone, especially us at Lilou.

90% of our time on Twitter we chat and comment as real human beings We have a passion for what’s going on in the ethical fashion world, but also have interest in the design world, and the world in general. Sometimes we are serious, but much of the time we are having fun on Twitter, or trying to.

9% of the time we RT (Re-Tweet) We like to learn from enlightened individuals and via Twitter we read articles, watch videos and listen to podcasts suggested by like-minded folks, peers, world-leading experts… And if we think the material they recommend has something to offer our own Twitter community, we RT / pass links to articles, videos, jokes. That’s Retweeting.

1% of the time on Twitter, we broadcast news related to our own company
Of course we have a neat range of fashion accessories that we would like to sell globally, but we aren’t going to ram news of Lilou scarves and handbags down your throat. In fact when we take the liberty of broadcasting our company news 1% of the time on Twitter, we mainly mention articles we have written advising folks on colour – choosing the best colour for you, gaining confidence with colour, how to mix and match colours. We also publish information on how to care for woven products, and when we extend our operations to Cambodia, where we are setting up workshops and community projects for our weavers- you can count on us spending 1% of our time on twitter telling you about it.

Twitter in fashion – summary

The Twitter button is instant, the action thereafter is instant, but the mind-altering results come painfully slowly. Ultimately Twitter will change your opinion of us. Hopefully over time, you will view us as real people who are passionate about ethical fashion. We hope that our customers and peers will put us right when we go off track, and encourage us when we do things right. If people like our company and our product range, it is 99% them who will tell their friends to check out our offers, not us – and we’ll do the same for our fellow tweeters.

We don’t auto follow, or robo broadcast or ignore mentions or DM with promotions – the equivalent of jumping out in front of a pedestrian, slamming a billboard in their face and screaming BUY BUY BUY. We chat, joke and help. That’s the beauty of social media – it’s the real world online.

We would love to hear what you think, and will retweet the best comments