Social Media and Fashion Magazines

Social media has taken a large turn within the last 5 years. In 2010, an article was published on Mashable and the Social media portion really stood out to me. Here it is: "What About Social Media? Fashion magazines are clearly trying to corner their own share of the ever-expanding online and mobile advertising markets. But of all of the publishing executives I spoke with, only two — Susan Plagemann of Vogue and Ted Nadeau of Elle Digital — noted an increased demand for social media-based solutions from advertisers, even though more and more marketers are allocating funds to social platforms. That's perhaps not surprising, given the number of luxury brands that advertise in these magazines and their general reluctance to engage with social media. As contributor Samir Balwani argued in a previous post, luxury implies a sense of exclusivity — ergo, not everyone should be able to freely interact with the brand on Facebook and Twitter. "It's difficult for a brand to selectively choose who to interact with and, unless done properly, this segmentation could cause a major backlash," he said. I spoke with Axel Dumont, who oversees media duties for Chanel North America at MEC, about the challenges that Chanel, as a luxury brand, faces with social media. "Chanel is a very creative-driven, luxury-driven brand. And right now they would not go with anything that doesn't showcase the brand and make it beautiful," he said. "They don't want any interaction with their brand consumers. Chanel belongs to Chanel. It doesn't belong to anyone else but Chanel." Given the company's attitude, it's no wonder that Chanel and other luxury brands aren't willing to let publishers run with their brands on social media platforms. Web and mobile-based solutions offer much more control, both in creative production and distribution. Although magazines will begin to announce ad page sales this week, we won't likely know any details about the success of these web and mobile-based promotions — at least the ones that aren't tied to print — until they are launched in mid-August. Of the solutions that these magazines are presenting for fall, which do you think offers the most value to advertisers? And, as a consumer, which offerings do you most want to engage with? Share your thoughts in the comments below." http://mashable.com/2010/07/20/fashion-mags-digital-fall/