Social Media

When looking at fashion and social media, we can break down the types of social media down in to two categories: general social platforms and sites and apps created specifically for fashion. Two hugely popular platforms that are not fashion-specific but that enhance the profiles of bloggers are Instagram and Pinterest. Unsurprisingly these are two of the more image-heavy platforms as opposed to Facebook and Twitter, which tend to favor text. There are several websites that are tailored to sharing outfit photos and highlight the blogger as a brand such as Lookbook, Chictopia and VFiles. These sites are primarily for sharing outfit photos but also let the user tag the items they're wearing, comment on other user's photos and search by categories such as item, color, brand and more. 

Jeremy Langmead published a piece in the Times recently that examines shoppable apps and social media platforms. Langmead writes, "Tommy Ton, the influential Canadian photographer and fashion blogger, uploads a street-style picture of a guy looking cool in a baseball top and men start to dig theirs out of their closets. Makeup lessons can be garnered for free from teenage vloggers who are as adept with their media as they are with their mascara. Who needs a Vogue editor anymore?" He also points out that we are all style-literate today; there is no way to be on social media and be out of the loop of current trends. Social media is also re-shaping the way brands are thinking and even designing products. Langmead describes how brighter colors show up better on Instagram so designers could potentially be designing something that looks great on Instagram but unflattering or underwhelming in real life. 

(Source: @evachen212)

Even the editors themselves are beginning to ask that same question. Eva Chen, former beauty editor at Teen Vogue and more recently former Editor-In-Chief of Lucky Magazine left her position a few months ago and is now Instagram's Director of Fashion Partnerships. Chen has been a prominent player in the editorial fashion world for several years and this move signifies a major shift of a focus on digital content. Even before she left her job at Lucky Magazine (which no longer exists as a print publication) she was helping the brand transition into a completely digital site called LuckyShops. I can also speak to this from personal experience interning at Cosmopolitan.com this summer. Whereas a few years ago, websites of magazines were originally meant to serve as a place to access pieces published in print, magazines are now creating unique content for digital platforms and often have little or no contact with the print publications. For example, Cosmo's digital offices are actually in a different building entirely from the magazine to accommodate the amount of content the digital reader desires. 

(Source: @Cosmopolitan)

Social media has also proven important for a bloggers image. Bloggers can use social media to both promote content that appears on their site as well as drive traffic to their site through platform-specific content that they create, such as a post just for Instagram or just for Twitter. If I am looking for new bloggers to follow, I always scroll through Instagram and even search for hashtags such as #blogger, #ootd, #newpost, #giveaway etc.