Social media monitoring project part 2: Some advises for Britain’s largest online fashion retailer Asos

In my last post, I analyzed recent campaigns of online clothing retailer Asos , who really did a good job in the powerful use of social media for digital marketing .They also applied social media to operate their compaigns, like allowing customers to share their pictures wearing on Asos on the official websites and making fun videos to attract audience in Youtube.

 Compared with other young fashion clothing brands like Zara and H&M, Asos does not have a real physical store, which means it is hard for customers to touch or try on clothes .So , I think this is one significant reason why Asos invest so much in social medias, because only by relying on these platforms can Asos compete with other real-store companies in fashion clothing market.
 But this time, I want to analyze its current situation and what the strengths and weaknesses existed in their old campaigns.

 Competitors


  Competition from recently imported European retail outlets is strong in the United States. Companies like H&M, Zara and most recently, Top Shop are marketing similar styles at the same, and sometimes, cheaper cost. All of these competitors have their own characteristic styles in social medias.

Asos home

Zara home

H&M home

5-year trend

12-month trend

The yellow line is Asos,red line is H&M and blue line is Zara .

The situation is not so positive.It is clear that the market which Asos is gaming in is competitive, all the competitors are skilled in marketing and master in controlling groundswell .

Zara

h&m

asos

Although maybe Asos is not most popular clothing brand, as a online retailer with no real stores , Asos has its own strengths to develop and the potentials to overpass other brands in the future.

Strengths:

                                Asos home&Instagram

•   The cooperation between asos home and Instagram can increase customers interaction experiences in their purchasing process, which is important for a online company without real stores.
• Sharing photos of customers look with Asos's products .
•  Post two to three times a day with sale bargains, fashion inspiration and trend updates to main @asos account. Uses @asos_studio to show customers what’s happening behind the scenes at the ASOS studio.
•  For their @asos_studio account, they will put product codes with their images so that customers can easily locate the desired items online and purchase. 
• 
  
  

 FACEBOOK 

• Post 2-3 visual updates per day, including weekends. Posts are used to promote new products or sale items and tend to get a few hundred likes and a handful of comments. They will also include fashion and beauty news as it is of interest to their target audience, however they keep to fit with ASOS’ personality. 

• Posts that include a question tend to receive the most responses. One of their ‘fill in the blank’ post can generate up to 100+ responses at a time.

• The ASOS team does an excellent job at responding to user comments. They try to interact with any and every customer with questions, comments or concerns as part of their business objective to hit 24/7 engagement.

Weaknesses :

Your message needs to be aimed at your target audience but still reflects your brand image. But sometimes the videos have little relationships with Asos.

 

For example, in the video “How to make a man bun” , we can’t find anything related to their brand name, or any clues telling us this funny video is made by Asos. What a waste this will be if Asos made a popular video successfully but no audience know who made this contribution.

Also, companied with its high exposure in Youtube can be queried by audiences about their clothes quality, because audience believe all the money used to make videos are made from customers. 

Another weakness is that although it is a good way to show customers' look with the clothes they bought in Asos, sometimes the pictures can be the wrong items which just are similar to the one dressed on customers. That is confused and even can be fraudulent to other customers, and one bad outcome could the wrong picture lead customers to buy the wrong products.

 

Opportunities:

• Larger retailers existing in both digital and physical form may have more brand recognition than ASOS, as they gain consumers through foot traffic as well as their online platform.
• To turn into an opportunity: ASOS must continue to differentiate their site, to draw consumers to their online platform.  Additionally, through partnerships and advertisements on blogs and publications, ASOS can continue to drive more traffic to their site. 

Advises:

• overall, my first advise to Asos is to accurate the information they offered in their official websites.Like showing the right items showed in customers pictures, because these small mistakes can make a huge grounswell ,which can destroy this online retailer's whole reputation .
• Secondly ,Asos should avoid making videos irrelated to their brand, which only waste their resources.Instead, ASOS can begin to feature advertisements in more videos that appeal to its target market. Additionally, they can feature advertisements on blogs targeted to their consumers.