There are always a few things that you can learn from successful brands when it comes to social media marketing. Love, Bonito, a Singapore-grown fashion brand, is not only captivating ladies in Asia but also shoppers in the US and UAE.
This ‘by women, for women’s fashion label, has certainly got a few cards up its sleeves in the social media game. In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at Love, Bonito’s social media marketing strategies.
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Love, Bonito was founded by Rachel Lim and two other co-founders, with a pre-loved apparel blog, BonitoChico in 2005. The blog then turns into a full-blown e-commerce site selling imported women’s apparel.
As the business grew, Rachel foresees a demand for apparel specifically tailored for Asians and it gives new direction to the business. Since then, the name Love, Bonito was coined and it started introducing fashion lines that are meticulously designed for Asian ladies.
Today, Love, Bonito is a recognizable apparel brand in Asian countries and has a formidable fan base in the region. While it is first and foremost an online business, Love, Bonito has launched 19 retail stores in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in recent years.
As a fast-fashion brand, Love, Bonito’s social media strategy revolved around appealing to its demographic with product images, campaigns and brand messaging.
The brand has a presence on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn although it adopts different strategies across the platforms.
Instagram proves to be the most influential social media platform for Love, Bonito. It has the highest number of followers and engagement.
To gain an insight into Love, Bonito’s social media strategy, we’ve used Sociality.io to acquire historical analytics. Our team also went through the fashion’s social media posts on several platforms.
Here are what Love, Bonito has done right.
There’s a misconception that businesses need to be active on all the major social media platforms, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Well, you don’t.
What’s more important is to be on the social media platform where your target audience is. There’s no point in spending a hefty marketing budget on a platform that isn’t going to produce a positive return.
Throughout the years, Love, Bonito has tested various platforms. Instagram proved to be the top social media platform where its potential customers linger. To date, Love, Bonito’s Instagram page has more than 335,000 followers and it is the most engaging social media platform for the company.
The second platform where Love, Bonito maintains a strong presence is Facebook with more than 260,000 users. Facebook does have an overlapping demographic with Instagram although the latter tends to have a younger user base.
Apparently, Twitter didn't work out long-term for Love, Bonito. The company gave it a try before halting its campaign towards the end of 2014. The brand’s account is still active on Twitter with more than 6,400 followers.
Again, this highlights the importance of experimenting and measuring indicators on different social media platforms. Love, Bonito’s decision to stop promoting on Twitter allows it to focus it’s marketing effort elsewhere.
For example, the company turned its attention to Pinterest. While Pinterest does not have a huge user base in Asia, it is highly popular in the US. Most Pinterest users are female and 89.9% of its audience are in the US. This coincides with Love, Bonito’s ambition to expand its brand to Americans.
Love, Bonito doesn’t limit itself to publishing typical product marketing posts. While self-promotion is necessary, the company recognizes the power of other people harping about its brand.
Therefore, it has crafted a brilliant strategy, which is to create a community amongst its customers. That’s how the #LBcommunity movement was born. Love, Bonito encourages customers to share their best shots of themselves posing in its apparel on social media with special hashtags.
The company has also made an official Instagram account, @wearlovebonito for its #LBcommunity movement. This special IG page features snapshots of customers donning the brand’s outfit and looking their best in it.
Love, Bonito applied the same strategy for its Pinterest audience, with a dedicated board, #iwearlovebonito.
The #LBcommunity movement is a win-win strategy for Love, Bonito and its customers. Some ladies shoppers are keen on taking OOTD snapshots and Love, Bonito provides them with a platform for a wider reach. For their efforts, Love, Bonito occasionally run promotions with special privileges to shoppers who are part of the #LBcommunity.
It is obvious that Love, Bonino is taking community-building very seriously. The company goes to the extent of publishing mobile-editing tutorials, which help its shoppers to produce better Instagram-worthy photos.
And when you’re seeing some of your female acquaintances on Instagram sharing and hashtagging Love, Bonito in their new dress, you know that the company’s move in encouraging user-generated content has paid off.
Video serves as a powerful marketing tool and Love, Bonito makes it part of its social media strategy. Instead of straight-to-the-point product marketing, Love, Bonito presents inspirational videos that resonate with its target audience -- women.
A look into Love, Bonito’s Youtube page reveals dozens of different captivating and purposeful videos.
Love, Bonito uses video marketing to reach out to its audience in a non-intrusive manner, by endearing itself with content that resonates with its target audience. Some of the videos are inspirational, while others are helpful guides for young women.
This video, titled ‘I am, she is, we are’, shows the connectedness between women through empowering music and natural interactions. The 1 minute plus audio has gained almost 1.5k views
Love, Bonito didn’t forget that entertainment is part and parcel of good marketing. One of its videos is a collaboration with Universal Studio Singapore in conjunction with Halloween night. It’s also one of the most viewed videos in its collection.
Publishing consistency is one of the basic rules of social media marketing. If you’re posting daily for the first week, and nothing for the second, you’re sending the wrong signals to your audience about your commitment.
It doesn’t matter how frequent you’re publishing but the key is to stick with a schedule. This is where Love, Bonito has done brilliantly right.
(Love Bonito’s Instagram publishing frequency from Sociality.io)
The brand has maintained a rather consistent schedule in publishing on Instagram where it publishes an average of 1 post per day.
On Facebook, the brand doesn’t publish as frequently as it does on Instagram. And when it does, it usually publishes more than 1 post a day.
(Love Bonito’s Facebook publishing frequency from Sociality.io)
A look into Love, Bonitor’s Twitter strategy also shows consistency in terms of tweeting schedules. For the 2 years when it was active on Twitter, Love, Bonito has sent out 1,779 tweets. That’s about 2-3 tweets on a daily basis.
In business, it’s a norm to collaborate with other businesses and the same goes for social media marketing.
Collaboration is a mutually beneficial effort for all the parties on social media. By sending its audience to another business, Love, Bonito gets a fair share of new visitors from the collaborating partner’s audience.
Throughout the years, Love, Bonito has struck up various collaborations with other brands and it doesn’t hesitate to promote them on social media.
For example, #LBCommunity members got to enjoy RM25 off from SaSa Malaysia, a leading cosmetic retailer in the neighbouring country.
Or the below cross-promo with Barbie, a global brand known for its fashionable toy dolls. It’s a brilliant move to further strengthen the Love, Bonito exposure with a decades-strong brand.
For a business like Love, Bonito, it’s natural that most of its published posts are product related. However, it’s important to interject regular posts with unique, memorable content.
You don’t want to drown the audience with the daily, monotonous posting of new arrivals, deals, fashions, and everything that entices them into spending. Occasionally, it’ll be helpful to publish purposeful content that breaks the rhythm.
A bright greeting on New Year’s day offers hope and comfort to Love, Bonito’s audience in a rather challenging year.
A casual recollection of some of its loyal fans will only endear the brand to its community evermore.
Or a bold encouragement to fellow women who believe in the cause of Love, Bonito.
The point is, it isn’t enough to publish only product-related content on social media. Remember that you’re interacting with users and they need to feel a human side from the business. Displaying empathy is sure to earn your business brownie points from the audience and forge a deeper connection.
Ultimately, revenue generation is one of the goals for a business when it embarks on social media marketing.
In order to generate revenue, you’ll need to give a nudge to social media users at the appropriate time. Otherwise, all you’ve done is build a crowd that doesn’t translate into sales.
Love, Bonito is adept at incorporating sales and conversion elements in its social media pages. On its Facebook page, you’ll find that it has a shop where users can easily make purchases.
Love, Bonito also never fails to alert its followers of any new products or promotions, which keeps interested shoppers in the loop. Its catalogue-like post, captivating caption and a short URL to its online retail site is a textbook example of conversion-optimized content.
Through years of improvisation, Love, Bonito has established an omnipresent across social media channels that matter. The company knows the exact content that resonates with its followers and has built a stellar community out of it.
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