If you are a PR or marketing strategist working with a fashion brand or design house, you must be under pressure these days to deliver the most innovative ideas incorporating social media into the busy fashion weeks season. Not just innovative, but something that can top last season’s front row laptops at D&G and the multi-cameras live streaming at McQueen. If you still don’t have that one big idea that will take your brand from Fashion 1.0 to 2.0, I have a few that could make just as much buzz, if executed well, even without a generous sponsorship from Apple. Feel free to adopt, as I most likely won’t find any use to them (my days at the creative agency are far behind), and most of them will be out of fashion next season. As much as some sound unrealistic, I would love to see them actually come to life, in some way.

Idea #1. Live stream the makeup room! Lots of designers live streamed their runway shows for their fans, but none live streamed behind the scenes of the craziness that goes into preparing the show. Anyone who has been backstage before the show knows that most interesting things happen there, when hundreds of people are working together to put on a 5 min show. A camera in the makeup room would get so much more views than any runway.

Idea #2. Let the models tweet! Again, if you’ve ever seen models backstage before the show, you must know that these creatures spend majority of their time texting or doing some other stuff on their phones. Why waste the opportunity on silly messages, when they can live tweet from the backstage of your show! Many models use Twitter these days, and encouraging them (or actually allowing them) to tweet anything they want can create lots of buzz on its own.

Idea #3. Make hashtag your fashion trend! I’m pretty sure 2010 will mark the year hashtags became trendy, just like accessories. These days it’s even appropriate to use them in official invites, right next to the dress code. So there is no reason you can’t create your own hashtag for the runway show or presentation and include it on the invite. That way guests will start tweeting about your brand right after receiving the invite, and connect with each other.

Idea #4: Open a countdown blog! Although we know designers keep their collections a secret before the shows, these days it’s all about the pre-show buzz. Give fans a tiny sneak peek of the fabric, the silhouette or a sketch - and you created excitement. Give them one every day for the 30 days before the show - and you created a real press frenzy! The cost of opening a blog is zero and you will actually save money and resources by not pitching the sneak peek to all bloggers, but publishing it yourself.

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Last week I wrote on the subject of content overload, which sparked conversation among bloggers who find they are also battling the quality vs quantity dilemma. This lead me to another hot subject widely discussed on the web these days – the decreasing relevance of search engines and the increasing importance for web curation. Let’s look at these two trends and explore the opportunity they bring specifically to the fashion media.

Trend #1: The decreasing relevance of search engines in the age of content farms and reproduced content. Google ranking slowly loses its value and trust. As John Battelle points in Searchblog:

The Google ecosystem is failing more - failing to get us what we think we want. Failing to not frustrate us. [...] Now, Google’s ecosystem is ripe for a quick buck - “content farms” that build article pages cheaply to make a quick buck off AdWords. But these articles, at least for a portion of us, don’t really provide the answers we are looking for.

Is it possible that the action itself of Googl-ing content won’t even exist in a few years from now? After all the more content gets produced every year the harder will be the job of finding the right one. Our frustration with not getting the results we want might turn us to seek content in different places, such as authorities on the subject of our interest. Richard MacManus at ReadWriteWeb also thinks Google should be worried:

Right now ‘quantity’ still rules on the Web, ‘quality’ is hard to find. Perhaps that’s why Reuters is betting on the subscription model - it hopes that consumers will just subscribe to quality content, thereby removing the need to search for it. I think there’s something to that, which if true implies that Google will become less relevant in the future.

Trend #2: Web curation will be of the biggest trends (and challenges) of 2010, according to Pete Cashmore of Mashable. As he writes at his column for CNN:

Who better to direct our scarce attention than experts in their fields? [...] Journalists, it would seem, are well-placed to capitalize on the trend, since directing an audience’s attention via links is not materially different to editing a newspaper or magazine.

And soon enough consumers will be willing to pay for it. This is something many media outlets are betting on these days, including the WSJ and Rupert Murdoch who declared earlier this year that the era of a free-for-all in online news was over:

Quality journalism is not cheap. The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.

Now let’s sum up these two trends and apply it to the fashion world. Instead of mourning on the rapid decrease of the glossy pages, fashion editors should be focusing on a new medium - curated web. They have the AUTHORITY and EXPERTISE to point to the right sources and answer the questions, and it seems like soon enough people will be willing to pay for this service.

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In his article, “The End Of Hand Crafted Content”,  Michael Arrington of TechCrunch touched a subject I’ve been thinking a lot about lately as a blogger and content creator. The discussion couldn’t be more relevant for the fashion world, just few weeks before the NY fashion week chatter begins in the blogosphere. Expect news, republished news, stolen news, opinions on republished and stolen news, even more opinions and then yesterday’s news republished again just in case our readers didn’t catch the original ones.

Let me simplify the fashion weeks publishing cycle to make the point: Style.com usually posts the collections’ photos first and then the blogosphere republishes them with few opinionated sentences attached. Sometimes there is a report from the actual show, but mostly you can’t tell if the blogger was there or actually needed to be there to write the piece.

As for the general fashion news - WWD usually gets exclusives on most of them, and then the blogosphere chews it for the next few days. As an example you could take the recent news about Julia Roberts signing as the new Lancome face. Google indexed about 4,864 (!!) blog posts since WWD broke the news on December 4th. A typical blog post included a nice picture of the actress, one sentence describing the news and another paragraph quoted from the source or the press release. Don’t forget an SEO-friendly smart title to top the story - and voilà, in under 5 minutes you created a new piece of content, your blog looks alive again, and you even feel like a reporter, helping the news spread…

…Or adding to the clutter.

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If you blogged for more than a year or two, you must have noticed how much the space has changed. We are in this chaotic transitional stage where blogging is redefined and becomes something more established, with FTC making the  rules or without them. The explosion of social media and blurring the lines between marketing and opinions, makes it harder for a single person to navigate their way in the space. From advertorials to sponsored tweets, branded widgets, dedicated emails, giveaways, contests - many bloggers turn their hobby into profitable (even if still small) business.

The question is how do you keep growing and monetizing your blog without losing your true audience and… your style? In the days when brands go out of their way to get the bloggers on their side, it’s more important than ever to establish your own rules and stick to them.

As someone who is constantly approached by marketing and PR people, I thought it would be helpful to share few pieces of advice. I believe together we can change the way some companies approach bloggers and eventually all benefit from it. At least I hope so….

1. Define your assets. Your blog is your media property, and you should treat it as such, whether you have 1k or 100k visitors. It is important to get a scope of your assets in order to play the blogging business game. Example: you have a blog with X page impressions, email list with X subscribers, Twitter account with X followers, Facebook page with X fans, etc. Get those numbers together, keep them handy and update often.

2. Decide whether your persona is part of these assets. Most of fashion bloggers these days are open about putting their personality out there, and some manage to close endorsement deals, ad campaigns and other opportunities based on their personality (and sometimes looks). If you are an expert in your domain, have a great niche, put your personality out there and manage to create a following (even small) - you might be appealing for some brands to work with you.

3. Decide which of these assets you want to monetize. It might be a good decision not to monetize all of these channels. Example: You might decide that even if you are fine with running occasional sponsored posts, you don’t want to send out sponsored tweets. It depends on your audience, and some might be more tolerant than others.

4. Define your rules and boundaries. They are painful and hard to decide on, but trust me it’s better to create those once, than have ethical dilemmas every time a sponsor approaches you with opportunity. If you are in the business of blogging you have to have Editorial Guidelines and Media Kit, both available online. It’s so easy to send people the link (plus, you can update both without resending to every contact). It presents you as a serious professional and eliminates unnecessary negotiations.

5. Learn to differentiate between editorial and promotional content. The recession has put lots of pressure on retail brands, which now use their PR firms to not only create the buzz, but also increase sales conversions. These days I see many PR companies  trying to push promotional and purely marketing content as editorial. Discount offers and sales are a great example of these gray areas. Many shopping and fashion blogs are posting these promotions, which sometimes look like oversized banner ads. I’m not against posting sale offers, but I believe it should be done in a tasteful way that doesn’t compromise the editorial voice. Great example is the NY mag’s The Cut blog which combines all sales offers in a daily text-only post without promoting one specific sale.  One of the consequences of posting promotional content is that once you start, you get more sent your way. Also, you largely eliminate the chances of these brands ever buying ad space or sponsored opportunity on your blog - why would they ever pay you if you keep posting their promotions for free?

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Although web video has been a buzz word for a while now, only recently it’s been adopted by online retailers, particularly of apparel and accessories, as an effective sales driving tool. The combination of constantly reduced video production costs, free online media channels with the rising importance of personal and authentic brand connections made the online video format the ideal medium to communicate brands message.

Fashion brands and retailers are in a big advantage here compared to other brands, since fashion products have the built in design aesthetics. Some even have artistic qualities which make them into perfect moving visuals.

Let’s take a look at some of the new web video formats the most innovative fashion brands and retailers are creating today, starting from the most direct to the most sophisticated:.

1. Video catalog.

As the most straight forward format, video can replace static product photos and allow e-tailers to showcase their products in the best way possible without actually seeing it in real life. Advantages: shoppers can experience better the movement of fabric, fit and silhouette.

Example: The UK-based ASOS.com uses specially shot runway videos to showcase the latest fashion products, which proving to be a great tactic considering their 104% growth in sales in the past year. Video catalog example

2. Video product reviews.

Similar to the video catalog, video product reviews allow e-tailers to showcase their products from multiple angles, and also add an actual overview of its qualities. Advantages: more personalized approach in showcasing the products leads to higher conversions.

Example: Zappos announced this week that it plans to create 50,000 videos in 2010, all featuring Zappos employees talking about the products. “It’s our take on it,” said Rico Nasol, Zappos content team senior manager, “Our customers want to see more Zappos people.” The e-tailer claims video demos increase conversions in 6-30%. Example.

3. VideoZine.

Unlike video product reviews and demos, video magazines feature multiple products and focus on a specific trend. Advantages: a great way to package the seasonal trends and showcase in motion a large number of products. The mood, sound and narration play a great role in the product sale.

Example: Net-A-Porter has done a great job by putting together sleek moving images of some of their hottest products. Check out this video report on Fall must have accessories:

4. Meet The Designer.

We live in the era of social media, where everything is personality driven, even marketing. Who can better sell a product than the person who’s passionately designed it? Advantages: an opportunity to create personal connection with the customer, and communicate the vision directly. Designers and creative people in general many times are blessed with unique character features, and this gives them an opportunity to turn their charm into actual sales.

Example: Shopflick, one of the leaders in the space, allows designers to sell their fashion products through videos. Product pages include designer interviews and background, as well as videos showcasing products and narrated by the designers themselves. Check out LA based Yotam Solomon “selling” one of his dresses in this video:
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