Open The Dialogue

Although fashion and social media are two industries that have always seemed to be very separate, over the past year, with the news of publishing powerhouses losing readership to their online counterparts and advertisers dropping like flies, the fashion industry, once ruled by magazines, has seemingly surrendered and is beginning to embrace digital media.

Survival of the Fittest

Big-name magazines like Glamour, Vogue and Elle now have their own blogs – usually connected to the publication’s website. Most major magazines including Vanity Fair and Vogue’s UK edition also have a presence on Twitter as do many of their individual employees. New York Fashion Week even maintains its own Twitter account with details of shows and Fashion Week events.

Technologically speaking, it was recently reported that Conde Nast, one of the industry’s largest publishers, intends to release some of their top magazines on the newly released Apple iPad. Conde Nast also announced that Vogue, one of the publisher’s largest and most well known fashion magazines, will be launching an iPhone application. This application will help user with shopping and styling. The Wall Street Journal’s Christina Brinkley calls it “part of the all-out rush in the fashion industry to embrace technology—most notably with blogging and tweeting.”

Power Plays

Bloggers, once considered lint on the tailored jacket of the fashion industry, have become a force to be reckoned with. Blogs such as Bryan Boy and Style Rookie creator Tavi Gevison have garnered enough respect to warrant star-treatment typically reserved for the upper echelon of style writers and editors.  In fact, Tavi, who is 13-years-old, was flown to Tokyo to cover a party with popular French label Comme des Garcons for Harper’s Bazaar.

Not only are these bloggers writing extensively about the industry, they actively participate in events including runway shows. This past month at New York Fashion Week alone we saw an influx of bloggers not only attending designer’s shows but sitting front row amongst fashion industry royalty such as Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington and celebrities like the Olsen Twins.

To accommodate these bloggers, designers have also embraced the digital age. This past season, big name designers like Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein made their shows available to home viewers by live streaming their shows.

Shares Well With Others

The fashion industry is traditionally based on a hierarchy of exclusivity and while some industry veterans disagree with the growing digital trends it seems that the industry as a whole is starting to accept that their target audience is paying attention to these mediums. What is the draw? Besides the obvious:  it’s cheaper and easier  to access –  interaction is key. Fashion bloggers are interacting with their readers; hosting giveaways and translating runway looks to the sidewalks. This accessibility is putting a different face on fashion – one other than models and style moguls.

The fashion industry has learned the same lesson as many other industries: shunning the online world will not make it disappear or lessen its influence. It seems, for now at least, that fashion publications, designers and editors are embracing digital media and learning to wield the powerful tools that are the digital world.

Yesterday, Facebook announced in a blog post that starting 12:01 EDT, Saturday, June 13^th, vanity URLs will be available for all Facebook profiles and Fan Pages.  This is an important step for Facebook. They are perhaps the last of the major social media platforms to offer them, as both  MySpace and Twitter already do.

A vanity URL is key for your personal brand because it allows us to find others online, by name and without a lot of work. Sure, Facebook has a search bar, but right now the problem is that once you search for someone and it pulls up results and then you still have to dig through those all of those to find the “right” person.  Once Saturday hits, you can easily just type in a friend’s specific URL and you’re DONE. Much easier.

This also means that Facebook can now play a more pivotal role in a person’s online brand.  Across all social media platforms, most of us try to keep consistent whether we use our real name or a pseudonym, people learn about us and look for us based off of the personal brand we have built.

Why else does this matter? It’s good for SEO and it allows us to find exactly what we’re looking for and know what we’re looking at. Something with a bunch of random numbers and symbols at the end doesn’t really tell us if we’ve found the right person or page. It also makes me dig even more when searching.

A few questions I have about the change though: will we find that Facebook users will begin to utilize the platform differently? Will search be as popular and will we still browse through the hundreds of random “John Smiths” of the world until we find the right one?  It will be interesting to see if this alters behavior in any significant way.

 What are your thoughts on the new vanity URLs? Will you be staying home this Friday to get one?

Also, to stake your customized claim on Facebook this weekend, you can visit http://facebook.com/username.

There have been lots of examples of brands and individuals getting hacked on Twitter. In some cases, this results in exciting opportunities (think @The_Real_Shaq), in others, it can be a threat to personal or brand reputation (think Exxon or, most recently Tony LaRussa).

In response to the lawsuit filed by Cardinals manager, Tony LaRussa, last week, Twitter founders had the following to say, “Impersonation violates Twitter’s Terms of Service and we take the issue seriously. We suspend, delete, or transfer control of accounts known to be impersonation. When alerted, we took action in this regard on behalf of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.”

In addition, they’ve previewed a new service, coming this summer, that will seek to authenticate brand or personal accounts so that owners and users can have a clearer sense of who they’re talking to and why they may or may not be getting the responses they’re looking for. Verified Accounts will come with a badge, like the one below.

Twitter Verified Account

Now, until this service is launched, there are a couple things you can do as a brand to be prepared.

1. Do your homework. Even if you aren’t ready to start a Twitter account, you should take ownership of your brand name and a few derivatives. This will prevent people from stealing your name. While you’re at it, check out Name Check, and see where you are susceptible to hacking all over the web. There are other services out there as well, such as Reputation Defender, that can help individuals track and improve your online reputation.
2. Set up Live Listening. Use an RSS reader. Set up searches for your name and your company’s name. Pay attention to where you are being mentioned and how.

Also, it’s important to remember that not all hackers are bad. Really? Yes. Take, for example, the hack-job done in conjunction with one of my favorite TV shows, Mad Men. You can follow @Don_Draper and the gang on Twitter – but these characters are not from AMC or their agency. This network of profiles was set up by fans of the show. After initially trying to disband the characters, they were allowed to continue tweeting, and continued to grow an audience and provide fans a way to connect with the show. Big win all around.

Melanie Notkin is a relative newcomer to the social media space but has already made an impressive name for herself as the founder and CEO of Savvy Auntie, an online community and web magazine for “Aunties by Relation (ABR), Aunties by Choice (ABC), Mommy Aunties, Great Aunts, Godmothers, and all women who love kids.” Melanie has made appearances at Mashable’s Social Media Hub: New York and NextWeb and and been featured in the New York Times, the Huffington Post and the Washington Post. Besides the Savvy Auntie community, you can connect with Melanie on Twitter and on Facebook. – AB

DM: What inspired you to start Savvy Auntie?
MN: I was a senior level beauty executive, traveling to Paris for work, meeting with the CEO often, and winning awards. I was a savvy, New York City executive. But when it came to the most valuable part of my life, my nephew and nieces, I didn’t know my Dora from my Bob the Builder. I was not a Savvy Auntie.

I felt it was time to develop the first online community for aunts so they could become Savvy Aunties. SavvyAuntie.com has become like a parenting guide for non-parents. It a modern resource for the cosmopolitan aunt.

You became a social media sensation since the launch of your website. What do you think have been your most successful social media tactics?
First of all, thank you. I appreciate the compliment and am honored. I think the first think to admit is that I didn’t really think of social media as a ‘tactic’ at all. Rather, I woke up one day with the decision to be an ‘auntrepreneur,’ and was rather desperate to gather as much information as I could. I started following tech and social media blogs in the summer of 2007, and heard about Twitter. I joined, dipped my toe in, and realized that the access I had to brilliant industry experts was invaluable. I was learning a lot. And the more I learned, the more I was able to share… and I also shared my story….of how I was launching my business…which inspired me to launch a blog about my auntrepreneurial journey. Listen, add value, repeat.

My presence in social media has always been authentic. I’ve shared the highs and the lows and everything in the between. Keeping it real, which is authentic to my brand and to my personality, is what I believe has helped me gather a wonderful group of followers.

You have worked with many PR professionals as editor of Savvy Auntie. What have been some best and worst moments?

Every moment is a thrill. I mean a year ago, I was praying I’d be on your radar. So every PR inquiry is a good thing.

Of course, when the inquiry or pitch is off topic, it’s a waste of my time.

On a few occasions, I’ve been called “Dear Mom” which is bad on a number of levels: The point of my site is for the non-mom; I’m not a mom; I wish I were a mom; time wasted.

I also have really bad visceral reaction to the word ‘blogger’ and ‘blog’ as it refers to me and to SavvyAuntie.com. Savvy Auntie is an online community. It’s not a blog. I’m Founder or Editor in Chief, not a “blogger.” Why must we ‘dumb-down’ ourselves by calling all online media “blogs?”

The other thing Savvy Auntie is not is a review blog. I don’t review anything. So don’t pitch me to review your product. Yes – I want to know about the latest gifts and trends for kids. That’s good! But I don’t know want to know about great maternity wear or home décor.

Also – I’m pretty cosmopolitan, so pitching me the opportunity to meet with a “celebrity” when the product is off topic, still won’t get me to go to the event.

Great pitches are ones that add value to my readers. Not to me.

Were you involved in social media before you started Savvy Auntie? How did you get started?
My entrée to Facebook was in May of 2007. My first tweet was in August of 2007. That summer and since, I began reading social media blogs (Mashable, Jeremiah Owyang’s blog, etc) to get up to speed. I spent a lot of time reading books like The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. Then I read his blog and followed him on Twitter… and so on…

As a woman in business and in social media, what tips do you have for other women in an otherwise heavily-male influenced industry?
Think of it as an advantage, not a disadvantage. You stand out in a crowd. Plus, women inherently do better in social media because we are more social. Leverage your inner Socialite.

Graduation day is forthcoming for many public relations students. What is one lesson or piece of advice about public relations that Professor Notkin would like to impart?

Listen. Never stop listening. When you stop listening, you stop learning. And when you stop learning, you fail. Your education is just beginning… that’s why they call it a “commencement.”

What three blogs do you recommend to someone just getting started in social media?
Sorry –can’t stop at just three….. it was hard to stop at 7!

Mashable, Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategist, Chris Brogan’s blog, Going Social Now, Citizen Marketer 2.1, The Social Media Marketing Blog, and What’s Next.

A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation to the interns at MWW Group’s headquarters in East Rutherford, NJ. I spent the majority of the time discussing the fine art of blogger outreach, and at the very end, I asked if anyone had any questions. Immediately, the interns jumped on the opportunity to talk about Twitter. Although Twitter is celebrating its third birthday this month, it is still seen as the mysterious new kid on the social networking block, and a large number of people still question it as being a fad.

Despite suspicions that this could be a waste of time, brands (whether companies or individuals) are staking their claim in Twitter. They are interacting with friends, fans and followers on a regular basis through this unusual stream of conversation.

Today, the Wall Street Journal’s The Decoder blog posted an interesting article on entering the Twittersphere from the perspective of their senior technology editor, Julia Angwin. She shares her experience as a newbie on Twitter, giving a less-technical explanation on how to use Twitter than is commonly found on Twitter articles today. She does mention how some brands are interacting on Twitter, but for the most part she describes the experience from an individual’s point-of-view, which is incredibly helpful for someone who has never used the tool. It’s difficult to wrap your head around how to use Twitter for your client when you yourself have never used it. The article isn’t perfect, and leaves out some nitty-gritty information on Direct Messages or how @ replies actually work, and she fails to mention trending topics or hashtags.

Nevertheless, for someone who has opened an account and is facing “0 following, 0 followers,” this is a good anecdote of how to get started and how to keep going.

Still looking for more ways to get grasp on the Twitter phenomenon? Check out this short and sweet video, courtesy of Common Craft.

Even after being shut down last week, Usernamecheck.com is doing something interesting and not often seen in the volitale ocean of start-ups and side projects on the web:  showing anyone how to re-create it.

This pet project-turned-social media hot button voluntarily shut down on February 19th.   It was the one-stop shop for finding out if your preferred username was taken or not among 65 different networks and services.  Boasting over one million unique visitors at the time of its shuttering, upkeep and hosting became an unavoidable problem.  In fact, it was only 10 days after the site checked its 500,000^th name that the plug was pulled.

Earlier today, their  Twitter page announced that the site put up a how-to guide, encouraging someone to pick up where usernamecheck.com left off.   The site is offering to link to any clones that are submitted as well.   The web should have more of this:  lowering the barrier to entry so anyone can create something that is actually useful and valuable to the largest amount of people.  It’s often a big driver behind today’s most popular social applications and is also a pretty good rule of thumb when it comes to creating on the web for your brand – “what’s in it for me?”

Hopefully we’ll see some interesting re-creatings or derivatives of this soon.  What improvements would you make to the Usernamecheck if you built a clone?