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During fashion month, the Moda Operandi team goes into overdrive: creating content, sending out tailored offers and updating the site to capitalise on the buzz around certain shows and trends. For the last few fashion seasons, the editorial, buying and shopping teams added another task to their list: updating the retailer’s Instagram broadcast channel.
The channel is open for anyone to join and offers the luxury e-tailer’s community insider coverage of fashion month in real time, explains Lauren Santo Domingo, co-founder and chief brand officer of Moda Operandi. “Our audience can brush up on all the gossip at the shows, the all-important soundtracks, the characters sitting front row, or the trends as they are emerging, all before the designer has even taken their bow.” Since launching last September, it has gained over 5,400 members and is connected to Domingo’s public profile, allowing members to react to polls and content shared by the Moda Operandi team.
The feature has been gaining traction since it was introduced in February 2023. Taking the form of a one-to-many messaging service, which leads on its brand or creator-led ‘group chat’ layout, influencers were quick to cotton on to the opportunity to connect with members of their communities and invite feedback. Now, more and more fashion and beauty brands and retailers are following suit. Jacquemus has a channel titled ‘Bonjour’, which broadcasts to over 58,400 members. Ralph Lauren and Saint Laurent are also using the feature, amassing 74,900 and 134,800 members, respectively. In beauty, Refy, which has become known for its community brand trips, has an 11,900-member channel, while Fenty Beauty’s ‘F Club’ has over 35,100 members.
The benefits of tapping in
For brands, it’s another tool in the kit to engage customers and reward and inspire loyalty.
Women’s fashion label Cult Gaia has a broadcast channel named ‘The Beam’, which launched in January of this year and now has 4,700 members. The channel is used to interact with the brand’s most loyal customers, sharing select content that wouldn’t be posted on the brand’s main grid or other platforms. This includes “crumbs from our team’s camera rolls, sneak peeks of collections before they drop, pieces while they’re still works in progress, and voice notes from Jasmin [Larian Hekmat, the founder]”, says Cult Gaia’s social media strategist Kristin Corpuz. The idea is that members “feel like they’re sitting with us at HQ”.
The rise of the Instagram broadcast feature comes at a time when many social media users feel overwhelmed by the amount of content — and especially sponsored content — in their feeds, and are increasingly looking for ways to filter out anything ill-targeted.
“Major platforms feel really crowded and hectic right now. You don’t see the content you actually want to see, and it feels like you’re constantly being sold to rather than spoken to like a person,” says Corpuz.
A new line of communication
As algorithms continue to create an echo chamber for regurgitating personal style trends, broadcasts enable brands to offer what feels like a more tailored shopping experience. As such, the channel even has potential to convert sales. “Our personal shoppers and customer care team are now receiving daily screenshots from clients who saw something in the broadcast channel and want to pre-order,” says Moda Operandi’s Domingo.
“It’s also an excellent channel for customer feedback,” adds Corpuz, noting that participants who join the channel want to be involved and are invested in Cult Gaia’s overall brand growth. Feedback can be obtained through the poll feature and ‘add response’ stickers, which allows Cult Gaia to directly gauge customer preferences in relation to strategy and product development. “We’ve asked them questions that directly impact the business — where they’d like us to open our next store and feedback on designs — and all of that information has been brought back to the respective internal teams,” Corpuz says.
This direct line of feedback from customers is especially important for emerging brands like Rat Boi, which has been worn by the likes of Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, but is still building its community. “We were already using Instagram stories to poll on fabrics and tease upcoming drops, but the group chat [broadcast channel] takes that a step further. It lets us engage directly with those who want to be more involved. These members opt in to get notified when we post, so it’s easier to communicate with them, instead of relying on stories that disappear after 24 hours,” says Alexa Coughlin, founder of Rat Boi, who has a channel chat called ‘Rat Pack’ with 306 fellow brand lovers.
The same applies to individual content creators. Influencer Macy Eleni uses member input to help her decide what she should buy or leave while on thrifting excursions. “It’s the group chat I wish existed when I was a teen [going] around my local Salvation Army every week by myself,” she says. She sends members voice notes, words of affirmation and her latest thrift finds, including some items that don’t make it into her reels.
“Fashion can’t only be observed through a ‘like’ button,” says Bezh Ali, the 26-year old accountant and content creator who runs @highfashiontv, which broadcasts fashion news as well as fashion history and archival content. “Everyone has their own opinion and vision, so exchanging ideas and talking about each detail make it more fun.”
Akin to peer-to-peer resale, the community element is key. Community is becoming a new form of selfcare amid the reported loneliness epidemic, according to trend forecaster WGSN. “This is where broadcast channels come into play,” says WGSN senior strategist Cassandra Napoli. “It’s a space to engage with those fans who may already be paying close attention to your brand and are willing to deliberately opt in for more.” She predicts that community metrics such as engagement via these broadcast channels will become core KPIs for businesses in the coming years.
The smaller numbers in these channels, compared with brands’ main accounts, is part of the attraction. “The media and fashion landscape is getting more ‘niche’,” says Emily Carmeli, trend forecaster and educator at New York’s Parsons School of Design. “This feature is proof that [brands] are seeing the signals in the market; more followers does not equate to sales.”
The pitfalls to watch out for
Napoli warns that attention spans are short, and Instagram broadcasts must offer authentic behind-the-scenes content to succeed — especially given that platforms such as Whatsapp and Substack had an early start with the group chat format.
“The strategy must provide a unique offering that justifies [members] spending extra time with your brand in this format or you will lose them to other digital spaces amid this attention recession,” says Napoli. “It’s about providing audiences with something special that they’re not getting from the standard content.”
There are other pitfalls to watch out for. Measuring return on investment can be challenging, and will depend on how much value a brand places on community-building. Getting the cadence right is also important, experts say. “Brands have to balance the fine line between reaching audiences effectively and overwhelming them,” Napoli says. She points out that there is a growing move towards digital detoxing as a form of selfcare, so brands need to be mindful and intentional with consumer communication. “It’s not an anti-tech sentiment, but rather an intentional tech one.”
When done right, broadcast channels can inspire a feeling of being part of a brand world, and even influencing what products it makes, resulting in long-term loyalty. These features are reshaping how consumers shop through relatability, says Corpuz. “They bring the audience into something that feels exclusive, like you’re talking to your best friend.”
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