3 slight of powerpoint and 2 pages of 2 step theory of communications

3- SNS for fashion communication

3.1: SNS (Social Networking Sites)

a) Definition:

Social network sites, as web-based services allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. (5)

b) SNS Categories:

Seven major categories of social media sites include social connections (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, My Space), multimedia sharing (YouTube, Flicker), Professional (LinkedIn), others are informational, educational, hobbies and academia. (Index 1)

Facebook and Twitter leading the technology world as most using social networking sites with maximum users and increasing number of them on daily basis. People want to spent time on these sites in order to update themselves to the current things related to their interest or which they want to know. Fashion industry is the one that increased its business even in the recession of other fields. Economic hardships may minimize the marketing for sometime but to maintain the interest of followers, its necessary for them to be in the technology world to maintain their position. Most of the companies in US increased their marketing budget in this time as well. (3)

Fashion opinion leadership is the category of peoples who are famous personalities in any field of life like David Beckham (Football). Fashion companies use them as a brand ambassador to maintain or increase the followers’ number associated with the brand. It is a part of most of the companies marketing strategy to use a personality who is already famous amongst the people; in that way they can take the maximum advantage to increase the trust of the fashion followers associated with the personalities.

3.2 SNS activity for fashion:

a) Time spent:

In the era of technology life, everyone wants to be the first one to know the latest developments through social media. In fashion, the first thing that comes to mind is clothing. Fashion celebrities (fashion opinion leadership) frequently use the social media to update their followers about the latest clothing trends and the followers take the lead from the celebrities and assist brands in extending different fashion trends.

With the fast changes in the world with the advancement in technology and increase in their use by the individuals globally putting pressure on the companies and celebrities to use these social networking sites for the quick and improved contact with them, who wants to be updated with the current trends. It seems impossible before the boom in technology, but now most of the population around the world is in touch through their computers and smartphones as well.

Companies focus on the marketing of the products through social media to bond the customers with them. Customers will be become loyal with the company or brand by the strong and reliable marketing strategies of the company. Studies showed that the people who never or rarely use the social media for fashion updates also accept the power of social media. (2)

b) Content Posting:

Social Networking Sites allow its users to post to user created profiles and create personal networks (1). User-friendly options of the social media networks attract its users to use them on regular basis and review the things with the updated status notifications. Fashion leadership update their status related to the current fashion on a regular basis. Usually it happens when they have been clicked for the new collection by their brands or sometime they update status with a single photo sharing on a daily basis. It was not possible before the social networking sites to get instant updates related to the individuals about whom the fans want to be updated. But now the world is a global village with the use of Internet and fans have not to wait for the printed addition of the fashion magazines to review the current trends.

Fashion leadership (fashion opinion leaders) gets likes and comments, as soon as they share the post with their followers. They must have to respond to their fans because it helps them in increasing the number of followers and also maintaining their interest and trustworthiness with them. Most individuals make there purchasing decisions based on the information they get from social media and therefore social media plays an important role in consumer behavior as well as fashion businesses (1). It is common amongst the fashion followers to review the opinion leadership updated status to get information what is in the fashion even if they don’t want to purchase the items from online shopping option. The social media users of today are very choosy in picking up the fashion items. Some of them may attract with the first appearance of the items but others wants to know the pros and cons related to that item and make decision accordingly. (4)

1. Alfred C. Weaver, Benjamin B. Morrison, "Social Networking", Computer, vol.41, no. 2, pp. 97-100, February 2008, doi: 10.1109/MC.2008.61

2. Clark, M., & Melancon, J. (2013). The influence of social media investment on relational outcomes: A relationship marketing perspective. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 5(4), 132-142.

3. Kunz, M. B., Hackworth, B., Osborne, P., & High, J. D. (2011). Fans, friends, and followers: Social media in the retailers' marketing mix. The Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 12(3), 61-68.

4. Phau, I. , & Lo, C. (2004). Profiling fashion innovators. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 8(4), 399-411.

5. Boyd, D. M. and Ellison, N. B. (2007), Social networks sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 13: 210–230. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x

Index

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2272684/blogging-pr-secrets-and-style-guides-whats-in-and-out

Method

Research Context

A college campus located in the Western portion of the United was chosen as the site of this study. A convenience sample of 60 enrolled college females aged 18-30 were selected as respondents. The median age of the sample was 21.89. This age group was chosen as, per the Pew research Center, as of January 2014 89% of adults aged 18-29 use social networking sites; making them the largest adult age group in the U.S. to use this form of media (“Social Media Use by Age Group Over Time, 2015).

The number of Social Networking Sites (SNS) available for use are vast, and each site varies in their purpose, ease of use, and content that is available to share. Whatever their original purpose, and whatever the ways in which that purpose is conveyed whether it be photo sharing primarily, status sharing primarily, both, or neither, the major goal of these sites is usually to share and review content with others within the same network. In order to decide the social networking sites to focus on, a preliminary study with 40 samples was done to determine, based on our chosen population of college aged females, which were the top 3 SNS sites used. As a result, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were chosen.

Research Measures

The 65 item questionnaire used was mainly adopted from previous studies where similar relevant research has been conducted. The scale created used multiple parts to categorize respondents into fashion leaders vs. non-fashion leaders and to determine their social networking site usage behavior.

Demographic information was collected to include age, year in school, ethnicity, and income. Each respondent was also asked to identify if they were members of Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter. Items from the Facebook Intensity Scale (Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. 2007) and the Facebook Questionnaire (Ross, Orr, Sisic, Arseneault, Simmering, Orr, 2009) were modified to include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The Facebook Intensity Scale is mostly a 5 point Likert scale which measures the SNS sites usage beyond frequency and duration but incorporates emotional connectedness to the site and integrates it into individuals’ daily activity (Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. 2007). The Facebook questionnaire contained three categories of items measuring basic use of Facebook, attitudes associated with Facebook and the posting of personally-identifying information. Response choices varied from nine-item multiple choice to yes/no depending on the nature of the item (Ross, Orr, Sisic, Arseneault, Simmering, Orr, 2009).

Fashion leadership can be measured several way including innovativeness, fashion involvement, perceived knowledge of fashion, and fashion related behavior. The base fashion leadership/innovativeness was measured by the 6 item Domain Specific Innovativeness Scale (DSI) created by Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991). This self-reporting scale is considered reliable and valid.

Fashion Involvement was measured by the three-item Involvement scale developed by Mittal and Lee (1989). A five-point agree/disagree response format was used.

Perceived knowledge, which indicates how knowledgeable respondents felt about fashion, was measured using a 6 item self-report scale developed by Goldsmith, Flynn, and Moore (1996). Fashion related behaviors were measured by 2 single items; the amount of time spent shopping for clothing and the average amount of money spent on clothing in a month’s time.