Week 9A

Using social media to promote your business or product is a great way to spread awareness. In the past couple of years, Instagram has rapidly increased in profiles from personal to business. For my business, Virtually You "personalized shopping for the real you", visual media works well because I am able to share my products and what we offer as an online retail company. A few businesses similar to my own are Stitch Fix, LeTote, Wantable, and Nordstrom Trunk Club. 

Stitch Fix would be considered Virtually You's biggest competitor. As both company's are extremely similar, Virtually You stands apart by acquiring a body imaging program to show your selections on a virtual you. Stitch Fix uses their social media to share pictures of customers in their selections and promote what they offer as an online retail company. They have over 780k followers on Instagram and post at least everyday. They get a lot of engagement through their posts, so their tactic seems to be effective for them, however they don't use hashtags in any of their posts. 

LeTote is an online retail company that offers a wear, return, repeat code. This business allows you to have the option to rent the clothes or purchase them if you wanted too. In comparison to Stitch Fix, they have roughly 86k followers on Instagram but post multiple times a day. They don't get much engagement compared to their followers. Their feed is laid out well however their posts don't draw in their followers too want to comment. The hashtag they use on almost every post is #LeTotestyle but hasn't been too effective for them. 

Wantable is another online trendy retail company that is slowly making themselves known. Their Instagram has 119k followers but their post schedule is random. Their last post was on March 30th but sometimes can go days without a post. The images they post are bright and simplistic however that isn't enough to draw in their customers. Wantable doesn't receive a lot of engagement compared to the followers they have. The hashtags they use such as #linkinbio or #sewgood isn't making a big difference in their engagement. 

Trunk Club is a newly acclaimed retail company by Nordstrom. Their Instagram has roughly 370k followers but again post randomly. Their last post was March 30th but sometimes can go two or three days without a post. Their feed is simplistic and brings in more engagement compared to LeTote and Wantable combined. Trunk Club posts simple pictures of outfits that they have styled themselves. #TrunkClub seems to be the only hashtag they use but isn't very effective in drawing in a broader audience. 

These companies all have one thing in common with their social media and that is that all the posts are very similar. What I can learn from them is to consider the clothes my business is going to sell and start sharing those with my followers. Adding a simplistic/cute background and filter, my posts can stand out just as theirs. Another way to improve my social media is to post and caption something that my followers can engage in, otherwise my post can potentially be ignored. Some hashtags that would work well for my business are #VirtuallyYou #ShopVirtuallyYou #newyou #personalizedshopping #stylist #shoppingstylist