Challenges facing the fashion blogosphere

Konector, who recently published the ‘Top 50 Fashion Blogs and Bloggers’ report, discovered that most professionals who promote products and services in the fashion blogosphere are currently facing significant challenges.

“There are far more fashion blogs online than there used to be, and the number is growing daily,” says Kingsley Maunder, a Director at Konector. “This makes it extremely difficult to choose one fashion blog over the other. Consequently the majority of marketing and PR executives approach the same few bloggers to promote their products or services, without really knowing how much influence those bloggers have over their target market.

“This leads to another problem, as those top bloggers are inundated with requests to promote brands. Many of them are now simply ignoring those proposals that don’t show an understanding of their audience. We are often asked by companies why they don’t hear back from the top bloggers, and this is usually the reason why.”

“The secret is to understand which bloggers have the greatest influence on your target market,” says Konector’s senior analyst, Brett Norval. “For example, if I wanted to promote my brand to Caucasian woman in the US, who are over 30 years old and have a household income greater than $60 thousand, I would use the Top 50 Fashion Blogs and Bloggers report to discover that one of the bloggers to approach is Angie Cox from YouLookFab.

“If I was interested in the African American market, I would build a relationship with Claire Sulmers from Fashion Bomb Daily. For the student market, you have Zepyhr Basine from College Fashion.”

“The same applies to market sector,” says Maunder. “If you’re promoting handbags, you approach The PurseBlog or BagSnob. However if your interests are in denim, you approach Denimology or Lorna Burford from DenimBlog.com.”

It is for this reason that Konector has analysed the visitor location and demographics of the top blogs in fashion. Companies can use the Top 50 Fashion Blogs and Bloggers report to discover which blogs have the greatest influence on their target market. They can then approach the bloggers directly, confident that they will promote their brand to the right audience.

“We analysed the visitor statistics for 44 countries and found just over half of all the visitors to independent English speaking fashion blogs come from the US,” says Norval. “Other countries that showed a significant readership are the UK, China, France and Germany. Denimology and Style Bubble are popular in the UK, while Garance Dore and Pandora have done particularly well in France.”

Examining the demographics of the top 50 fashion blogs, Konector found that two thirds of the visitors are under 35 years old. “There is very little difference between the proportion of readers who are under 18 years old, and those between 18-35,” says Norval. “This is in contrast to the beauty blogosphere, which we analysed recently, where we found that the most popular age group was 35-49.

“We were also somewhat surprised to see that forty-two percent of the visitors to fashion blogs are male. This is significantly higher than the thirty-four percent in beauty. One of the main reasons for this could be due to the popularity of streetwear and sneaker blogs like Hypebeast and HighSnobiety.”

Konector’s findings show why more and more fashion companies and PR agencies are using blog demographics when planning a campaign. Understanding and matching the target audience for a particular brand with the most suitable blog community is more effective than the traditional blanket approach. It is also less time consuming for all parties involved, which is a particular concern for the leading bloggers who are currently inundated with requests to promote brands.

More information about the Top 50 Fashion Blogs and Bloggers report can be seen at konector.com.