With an avid interest in online media, Kimberley Stone decided to combine her passion for fashion with her studies in “new age marketing.” The 27-year-old launched POSHGLAM.com in 2005 as an effort to increase networking opportunities in the fashion industry and influence the market.
Stone says 30% of her website’s traffic comes from social networking sites.
Though she’s mum on revenue figures, she says POSHGLAM does have multiple sources of revenue streams including advertising dollars, integrated marketing opportunities, and providing interim public relations for luxury brands–among others.
With 131,000 unique visitors, POSHGLAM’s growth has been steady, and Stone is aiming to take the website to the next level with backing from venture capitalists. Check out what this business-savvy entrepreneur has to say about social media and securing venture capital funding.
How have you leveraged social media to build your brand? How did you develop a strategy?
The core components of the brand must always be kept in mind, and nothing one does as a marketer should compromise the principles that are the essence of why the brand exists. Thanks to online measuring tools like compete.com, we are able to benchmark the site against our competitors and do a true situational analysis. But it’s important to keep your own analytical records via your private home-based server as well. A lot of online tools are still working toward accuracy and can’t be relied upon.
- We use Facebook for sharing articles and replicating our market through connective friends.
- We use Twitter for micro-messaging and building awareness via hashtags and linkbacks.
- We also use news feeds for those who love to feed our site into Google Reader or any other feed service.
Explain the pros and cons of social media partnerships?
Social media, simply put, is about being social. If a company can’t get along with other properties or people online, they might as well get out of the business. Partnering with other sites to share the market is a great strategy for site promotion, loyalty, and business longevity.
You use geo-targeting advertising. Why is this an advantage?
It enables us to pinpoint a demographic based on zip code and target consumers in the area for localized content and advertisements. It comes in handy with the international properties for POSHGLAM, including POSHGLAM.co.uk, POSHGLAM.fr, and POSHGLAM.it.