Example Of Fashion Bloggers Offer Their Audience Something That Traditional Fashion Media Cannot. Essay

Introduction

Fashion blogging is similar to feature writings on the fashion industry, clothing, and personal style (Gaynor, 2013, p. 2). A fashion blog can cover so many news and features like certain pieces of designer’s creations, new fashion trends, special accessories, urban fashion, etc. It is a major part of digital publishing of the fashion industry and through the years, fashion blogging have imbibed the traditional fashion media’s inherent standards of visual presentation, intriguing content presentation, among others (2013, p. 2).
Fashion blogs like those of Kayture and Vanilla Extract   (images below) impress upon a personal fashion experience to their audiences (Dodes, 2006, p. 1). Fashion blogs have justified their popularity by their creative and interesting, quality contents. Kayture shows how a simple fashion blog can partner with some of biggest names in the global fashion industry with their excellent editorial and personal brand. Meanwhile, Vanilla Extract is a remarkable way of presenting and managing a fashion blog with just very meager human resources.

Sample Fashion Post from the Kayture Fashion Blog

Source: http://www.kayture.com/

Sample Fashion Post from the Vanilla Extract Fashion Blog

Source: http://vanillaextract.me/
Fashion blogging can be appreciated in its special impact to marketing and selling. Its ability lies in its effectiveness in engaging their target markets or audiences (Paul & Kapur, 2010, p. 411). Fashion blogs cut through the traditional fashion media through its powerful engagement, coupled with the highest universal quality of fashion content and greater audience experience through creativity and innovations (2010, p. 411).

Theoretical Explorations of Fashion Blogging against Traditional Media

Fashion is a very dynamic industry and designers and fashion houses around the world are eager to introduce new products all the time. They want to be always on top of the fashion competition. Successful players are those which can effectively identify with their target markets and create brand loyalty and fashion preferences (2010, p. 1). Because of this, fashion marketing is a more sophisticated aspect of the industry. To illustrate, fashion designers and fashion brands should constantly produce new collections of at least twice annually and these fashion items are consumed not just in their home country but all over the world (2010, p. 2).
Fashion blogging comes in the contexts of digital marketing as the most attractive and the cheapest form of a distribution channel. It is very significant to emerging fashion players who have limited marketing resources at the onset of their operations (2010, p. 2). They try to catch the attention of many fashion bloggers who can set them up in the wider fashion audience. Their fates seemingly rely on fashion blogging.
Fashion bloggers always come up with high quality content and excellent content management. They make the best fashion very accessible to their audience in the most inspiring and fastest way possible. While traditional fashion media cannot be toppled by fashion blogging, the future of digital media and digital marketing makes fashion blogging a force to reckon with in the fashion industry. They represent a vital force of individual bloggers who constitute a remarkable influence in the fashion developments of our time (Ahn, Kim, & Park, 2010, p. 1).
According to the Social Media Impact theory, the fashion journalists should place themselves and their crafts with the sole intention of taking advantage in the way that they make or can make people buy products or services (2010, p. 1). As professionals, the fashion bloggers have been reliable sources of the latest and the trendiest fashion products and services which the audiences devour. Being a media channel, the fashion blog compels the audience to implement a two way communication process wherein they are not just experiencing the new products and services but they themselves act on it and inspire others to do so.
A founder of a successful fashion blog Lookbook stated that the fashion blogging community has so much more to provide to the market. They aid in curating, sharing fashion trends, and connecting with various fashion lovers and readers (Gibbon, 2011, p. 1). Fashion bloggers are very intimate with their audiences and they have the ability to inspire more loyalty than traditional media (2011, p. 1). They have the knock for communicating the essence of the fashion items with such flair and attractiveness and in the process, they are active marketers of such products. They help the fashion designers reach out to their target audiences through their blogs and blog sites. They serve as the best brand advocates and promoters after having a locked relationship with the audience. Their activities ultimately lead to more brand consciousness and inherently, greater sales (2011, p. 1).
Fashion blogs are typical illustrations of Grunig and Grunig’s two-way public relations model that can be considered as the knowing the opinions of the public and utilizing these opinions to attain mutually benefitting results (Gaynor, 2013, p. 23). Fashion blogs give a potential channel for marking a massive audience who are geographically-dispersed. By successfully doing so, they generate more sales (2013, p. 24). They also boost the online presence of the featured designers or brands in the online world, hence, creating online traffic towards the designers or fashion brands’ individual websites and links (Pal & Kapur, 2010, p. 1).
Fashion blogging paved the way to the most available channel. Their sense of timing, dedication and craft in producing the trendiest and most excellent fashion contents make them very accessible to the target audiences of the fashion makers (2010, p. 1). On the other side, these fashion makers (designers and fashion houses alike) invite the fashion bloggers at their new product or fashion presentations, events, fashion runways, shows, etc. As such dynamics go on, the fashion bloggers now take on many potential positions in the fashion world. These include being a blogger, marketer, product promoter, advertiser, curator, stylist, etc. (Gibbon, 2011, p. 69).
As fashion bloggers have established strong ties with both the fashion makers or producers and the target audiences, they become highly relied upon actor in the fashion industry (Gaynor, 2013, p. 27). Hence, fashion bloggers have also assumed a celebrity figure and they can also affect the way people see fashion and what they ought to consume or patronize, what trends they should follow, etc. To cite, the fashion blog, The Blonde Salad has attained celebrity status as its main blogger was invited to collaborate with Steve Madden for a shoe collection released in the Spring of 2014 (Thornley, 2014, p. 3). This fashion blog enjoys a community of 1 million special visitors and it gather about 12,000,000 impressions monthly (2014, p. 3). The end purpose of this collaboration is intense brand consciousness and greater profits. It advances the interest of both blogs and the bloggers and the designers themselves.
As compared to the traditional forms of fashion media, such as the largest fashion magazines as InStyle, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, etc., fashion bloggers have a more unique way of product presentations which are vividly transmitted in their blogs and social networks, including their own fashion community online (2011, p. 69). As it is, these fashion bloggers are all over social media networks like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram to capture the greatest number of audiences or followers. Aside from posting fashion finds every day, fashion bloggers also make special take or comments on fashion updates and trends. Their audiences and communities access these important comments all the time.
During a special event like a fashion show, fashion bloggers can constantly tweet and blog on real time (Thornley, 2014, p. 4). It is a special communications tool which can be hardly matched by traditional media. The effect is similar to the way that a sportscaster addresses a large baseball crowd during an event (Gaynor, 2013, p. 25)). The real time blogs and tweets are accessible in every fashion event such as store openings, brand marketing tours, signing of endorsements, and fashion weeks.
During these instances, fashion bloggers take a position of a press personnel who are as vital as the fashion event itself or the invited celebrities (2013, p. 26). The same way as celebrities are paid to make their appearances, media and target audiences rely on fashion bloggers to stream the hottest runway shows on real time. Hence, their presence is virtually important in any fashion event. They are the real connection of the markets to the actual marketing events. This strengthens bloggers as trend-setters (2013, p. 26). They maneuver business decisions and branding of even the most global fashion player.
The real time postings of fashion blogs make the audience more attached to these bloggers and their blog sites. They find more personal and honest opinions of the fashion developments which usually translate to fashion consumption. By dynamically being in the center of the going ons in the fashion industry, fashion bloggers play a significant role similar to the fashion actors themselves (Thornley, 2014, p. 6). The success of the fashion designers, fashion brands and other fashion companies critically rely on them.

Analysis

Fashion blogging has become a strong force in the marketing of fashion products and services. They serve as special role which includes being a brand advocate, promoter, marketer, curator, stylist, among others. Competition fuel the need for fashion blogging. As more and more consumers rely on the digital platforms for the products and services they will need. The importance of fashion blogging and their special place in the industry will never be shifted.
One important feature of fashion blogging which goes well with the global fashion markets is its universality. Bloggers from all over the world can reach out to millions of fashion consumers worldwide through the simple online channel which has many dimensions. As digital media continuously dominate the realms of communication, fashion blogging will remain as a formidable force in the fashion marketing. They can significantly influence the trends, developments and communications sharing across a vast network (Ahn, Kim & Park, 2010, p. 2). However, traditional fashion media will also remain as a vital force in the industry. The only thing is that fashion blogs present fashion news and creations in the real time and with utmost intimacy. It proves to be a very good channel of publicity wherein designers and brands can powerfully tap and engage a greater number of audiences. This is pivotal for new designers and fashion companies that intend to break into the big and highly promising fashion markets.
The intimacy can be taken in the written and visual communications as the baseline for the dialogues between the bloggers and the target audiences and the designers and their products. Also, the Social Media Impact Theory helps in the utility of social media channels as promoting general purchasing behavior. Fashion bloggers are now public media strategist and they have also turned into instant celebrities.
The authenticity can be indicated by the passion and the flair by which the fashion bloggers have for fashion and their contents (or posts). The audience can intimately relate to the bloggers because they reflect the same beat for fashion. Hence, fashion blogging has emerged as a special culture and norm of the digital world which requires fashion bloggers to make and share fashion and style-related photos, information, and personal comments.
In a way, the fashion blogging culture has sideswept the traditional and elitist media such as Vogue and Harper Bazaar that has enclosed fashion to a few players. Nowadays, the most popular and the most ordinary fashion scene or happening can translate into a fashion post or blog worthy of the millions of audiences’ attention and consideration. It is a break away in the sense that an ordinary blogger can have a take on a high end fashion show or likewise, an ordinary fashion event can be celebrated like a very classy fashion production. These developments democratize the way people consume and use fashion in their daily lives.
The emergence of fashion blogging also highlights the changing of the other aspects of cultural production, especially of the women magazine and fashion events. Fashion bloggers have indeed penetrated the fashion world. It has diminished its traditional hierarchies (Gaynor, 2013, p. 90). As mentioned above, fashion bloggers are now treated as celebrities and they have access to important fashion events such as the various Fashion Week and other haute couture shows. These invitations have been traditionally limited to the traditional media’s VIPs. High end fashion designers like Steve Madden can now collaborate with an unknown fashion blogger for the most promising fashion collection of all times. While these may seem an eluded prospects for the old fashion writers, this is now a working reality in the digitalized fashion world.

Bibliography:

Book
Gaynor, Lea-Greenwood, 2013. Fashion Marketing Communications. United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Online Sources
Ahn, SooKyoung, Kim, HaeJung, & Park, Boram, 2010. “Blogging: mediating impacts of flow on motivational behavior”. From: Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. Bradford, United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing, Limited.
Dodes, Rachel, September 12, 2006. "Bloggers get under the tent." The Wall Street Journal, available through: http://www.wsj.com/public/article/SB115801727410860002-3NtzCOa4qvvjJFhAlAC1llCEhM4_20070911.html.
Gibbon, Tim, 2011. “The impact of fashion bloggers: The global rise of the fashion social influencer.” Elemental Communications Ltd: United Kingdom. Available through: http:// www.elementalcomms.co.uk/blog/the-impact-of-fashion-bloggers-the-global-rise-of-the- fashion-social-influencer.
Pal, S. K., & Kapur, V., 2010. Blog marketing strategies for mature and emerging markets. International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, 1(4), 411. Available through: doi: http:// dx.doi.org/10.7763/IJIMT.2010.V1.73.
Thornley, Paige, 2014. Examining the Role of Bloggers in the Fashion Industry: A Public Relations Strategy for New Designers. Available through: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1074&context=joursp.
Images
Sample Fashion Post from Vanilla Extract, 2015. Available through: http://vanillaextract.me/.
Sample Fashion Post from Kayture, 2015. “Bardot.” Available through: http://www.kayture.com/.