fashion blogs

“For Lindex, fashion blogs are as important as traditional media”

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Back in May 2008 we could welcome our first e-commerce partner which decided to implement the Twingly Blogstream solution: Lindex, one of Sweden’s most well known fashion chains. Almost 3 years ago social media hasn’t been as ubiquitous as it is now, so taking this step and connecting an online store with the blogosphere deserved a lot of respect. Now of course, things have changed, and a host of other online shops and e-commerce sites use Twingly. That makes Lindex a real early adopter. Anders Dahlberg holds the position of Director of E-commerce at Lindex and was the one making the Twingly integration possible:

Hi Anders. Do you remember how you got in touch with Twingly?
I think it was an article on TechCrunch which made me aware of your service. They wrote about a solution for news sites but I figured that this would even work for an e-commerce platform. That’s why I called you, and after some exchange we implemented the Twingly Blogstream widget which we are still using today.

How exactly did you embed the widget?
We have it on each product site. If a blog links to a product page we automatically link back to the blog through Twingly. By doing that our visitors receive additional information regarding our products, and we send traffic to those linking to us.

What are your thoughts on the current state of social media?
Well, I think it’s getting harder for small blogs to be visible, while the bigger blogs maintain their reach. Those who only want to inform their closer friends might quit blogging and “move” their thoughts over to Facebook. Facebook is getting more important each and every day. Just look at the new comment system for third party sites which is pretty exciting, since it might help to increase incoming traffic from Facebook to external sites, like blogs.

How important are fashion blogs for Lindex? How do they impact sales?
Fashion blogs are as important as the traditional media. We work with them in the same way as e.g. with magazines – we invite bloggers to press events, maintain a dialog in our showroom and help out with answers and questions.

Which upcoming e-commerce trends do you see?
From a Swedish point of view expansion into foreign European markets will be one main theme for the near future, in order to reach new customers. Apart from that an overall trend is to become more effective in working with existing clients through service and inspiration. It’s very powerful if your existing customers are happy with your store and tell their friends about it.

What’s Lindex vision for the online store?
At Lindex everything is about fashion and inspiration. We want to inspire people to live a beautiful and happy life. We aim at making people curious with our commercials, which lead them to our site. They decide to buy something either online or in one of our physical stores in order to to feel beautiful and happy and to tell their friends about it. Having a successful multi-channel strategy in place is important, which is why our site has a high priority for getting in touch with our customers.

Success Story: Twingly Blogstream + Halens.se

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We’ve had Halens.se as a client since December 2008, and they originally launched Twingly Blogstream on their site as one of their first steps in introducing the brand to the social media world. As a follow up to our blog post a while back on Fashion Embracing Blogs, we’d thought we share with you all how Halens has used Twingly Blogstream as part of their social media strategy.

Freddy Sobin, E-commerce Director at Halens, says:

Twingly Blogstream is easy to install and has delivered positive results for us since day one. It has produced a positive word-of-mouth, increased brand preference, and significantly increased the number of blog posts, which has lead to more traffic and a strengthened SEO off page.

Check out the video below on how Blogstream was implemented on Halens.se:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWUV-c5CHFA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Of course you can always check out their site to interact with the widget, here’s the link to the Platåsko (platform shoe) example in the video.

How has Halens maintained the Blogstream activity?

In addition to having the latest and most blogged about products featured on their site, commenting back to bloggers is one of the key factors that the social media strategy team at Halens uses in driving bloglink activity. It provides great feedback, positive word-of-mouth from the blogosphere as well as smart branding

How have the bloglink results been?

Halens launched Blogstream in December 2008 and has been able to maintain positive bloglink results (click the chart below for a better graph overview on the bloglink data per month).

After the Twingly Blogstream launch on their site as the first part of their social media strategy, Halens followed by launching their own blog, creating a Facebook fan page, Twitter and Bloggy accounts, as well as a YouTube channel.

Connect with Twingly Blogstream

On February 21st, New York Times wrote an article called, Selling a Celebrity Look.

“Print magazines often list stores where readers can buy the clothes shown in the magazine, but they appear in tiny print in the back. Identifying items celebrities wear has been a popular feature on fashion blogs … And very few use it as a way to bolster e-commerce and advertising revenue.”

As you all might know, Twingly has been quite popular here in Sweden in helping the fashion e-commerce world connect to the blogosphere via our Blogstream widget.

If you have navigated through our Enterprise section you’ll have found all the necessary information on how the widget technically works. Check out our full list of our other e-commerce partners here.

If you have an e-commerce site and have interest on how Blogstream can help connect your brand to the blogosphere, feel free to contact us at sales@twingly.com

/Annie