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Ⅰ. Introduction

 Social media or consumer-generated media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) has been growing rapidly through the diffusion of high speed Internet (Kaplan & Haenlin, 2010). People can access social media everywhere and the spend time on social networking sites is different according to geographies and sex (Comscore Data Mine (CDM)^{A, B}, 2011). Israel is the number one ranked country with 10.7 hours per month, on average. It is followed by Russia (10.7 hours), Argentina (8.4 hours), Philippines (7.9 hours), Spain (5.7 hours), U.S. (5.2 hours), and Norway (4.5 hours). CDM^B (2011) showed that females (6.5 hours) spend more time on social networking sties than males (5 hours).

 Originally, social media was developed for the connection and communication between users and their friends. As the popularity of social media expanded, marketers acknowledged an important marketing channel to connect their current customers and potential customers. The best advantage of social media is two-way communication between companies and customers because marketers can connect directly to their customers.

 Apparel (2010) emphasized that now is the right time to use social media to take an opportunity to increase business performance. Using social media is not an option but a necessity. In 2010, the U.S. marketers spent approximately $ 1.7 billion on social media, and used Facebook (53%), Myspace (17%), and Twitter (3%) (Shah, 2011). Apparel companies have usually used social media to publish information about sales or promotions and to upload fashion shoots and runway videos. Some companies have presented photos of real women wearing their brands, conducted polls for new products, and posted new and fun videos per hour to increase brand reputation and brand loyalty. In addition, 89% of consumers rely on peer reviews about products and companies in social media (Apparel, 2010). It appears that social media can be used in a variety of ways to promote fashion brands.

 Currently, apparel companies are highly interested in social media, but the existing empirical research on social media for apparel companies was very limited. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to investigate the use of social media by apparel companies. Three objectives guided the work: 1) to describe the features of social media used by the apparel company, 2) to identify available information on social media of the apparel company, and 3) to analyze the relationship between the use of social media and the business performance of the apparel company. In addition, the findings would contribute to fashion marketers who are considering a new marketing strategy with social media.

Ⅱ. Background & Conceptual Framework

1. Definition of social networking site

 The terms social media, social network sites, and social networking sites, and social network services have been used interchangeably in practice. There is very limited research on how the terms are different conceptually and the terms are used distinctively. Therefore, the definitions for social media, social network sites, and social networking sites, and social network services are reviewed for this research.

 Kaplan and Haenlin (2010) adopted the term “social media”. They defined the social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0. and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content” (p. 61). They classified social media by the degrees of self presentation/disclosure and social presence/media richness as follows: “Collaborative Projects” (e.g., Wikipia), “Blogs” (e.g., You Tube), “Social Networking Sites” (e.g., Facebook), “Virtual Game Worlds” (e.g., World of Warcraft), and “Virtual Social Worlds” (e.g, Second Life).” Therefore, in the research social networking sites are considered a type of social media.

 Boyd and Ellison (2008) used the term “social network sites”. The term was defined as follows: “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (p. 211). Boyd and Ellison (2008) considered that social network site is a more appropriate term than social networking site. The term “networking” emphasizes building new relationships among users who don’t know each other. The term “network” is related to keep the relationships among people who already know each other. As contrasted to Boyd and Ellison (2008), social networking sites may be a more appropriate term in this research because companies may primarily be interested in building relationships with new consumers.

 Ahn, Han, Kwak, Moon, and Jeong (2007) defined the term “social networking services” as providing online private spaces to share private information, photo, and events with others through the use of the internet. Cyworld, MySpace, and Orkut are mentioned as the examples for social networking services. It seems the social networking services are used as the synonym of social networking sites. However, the term “services” is also used to refer to new features provided by social networking sites, such as Facebook Platform, Google Friend Connect, and MySpaceID (KO, Cheek, & Shehab, 2010). In the previous literature it is not clear how social networking services are differentiated from social networking sites, but it appears that service is used as a subordinate concept in social networking sites.

 Therefore, this research uses both social media and social networking sites defined by Kaplan and Haenlin (2010). In this research, social media means a phenomenon which communicates through all applications on virtual space. Social networking sites indicate a type of social media.

2. History of social media

 Social media started in the late 1990s, and has boomed since the mid 2000s. The beginning point of social media was interpreted by slightly different views of scholars. According to Kaplan and Haenlin (2010), “Usenet” launched in 1979 might be considered as the beginning point because public news were posted, readied, and commented on Usenet. But “Open Diary” founded in 1998 used a more appropriate format to admit a starting point of social media. The users posted and shared private stories with their friends. Boyd and Ellison (2008) considered that the beginning of social networking sites was SixDegrees.com launched in 1997 because users made their profiles, connected with their friends, and sent messages to their friends.

 During this time, social networking sites appeared in the world. LiveJournal, BlackPlanet, Ryze.com, MySpace, and Facebook were launched in the U.S. Skyrock was founded in France, Cyworld was in South Korea, and QQ was in China. In 2005, Facebook, started by Harvard University students, expanded to high school students, and everyone in the world. Today, Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking sites in the world (Boyd & Ellison, 2008; Joinson, 2008).

3. Use of social media

 Social media was utilized for various purposes. College students utilized social media as a tool to keep in touch with old friends and current friends. But they never communicated with their parents on Facebook and they very rarely connected with strangers. Some students as they responded that they can not live without Facebook. It means that the students might be addicted to Facebook (Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009). Forster, Francescucci, and West (2010) investigated why young consumers participate in social media, and then they found five different motivations such as ‘community membership’, ‘information value’, ‘friendship connection’, ‘participation confidence’, and ‘participation concerns’. The motivation of community membership is related to get involved a community. Information value is explained in terms of reciprocity and trust. It indicates the importance of the information quality and credibility in social media. Friendship connection is to keep friendship or acquaintances.The final two motivations are related to potential barriers to participation. Participation confidence is about concerns of the potential issues occurring as information spread out. Lastly, participation concerns are about fears and harms which occurred by strangers’ access to privacy information.

 In the research regarding diabetes, it was found that patients, family members, and their friends used social media to share personal clinical experiences, to request information about disease, and to get emotional support (Greene, Choudhry, Kilabuk, and Shrank, 2010). Overall, Greene et al. (2010) rarely found incorrect information in the discussions even though medical professionals do not show up. However, if wrong information is created, it would be very dangerous because it can be very rapidly distributed in social media.

 Park and Lee (2009) showed the influence of online reviews on purchase decisions between the U.S. and the Korean consumers. The U.S. consumers had online shopping experience more than the Korean consumers, but the Korean consumers more frequently used online reviews. The online reviews had influence more on the Korean consumers’ purchase decisions than the U.S. consumers. Specifically, the Korean consumers’ perceived usefulness of online reviews (attitude) affected more strongly their purchase decisions. Usage frequency of online reviews (behavior) is an important influence factor on the U.S. consumers’ purchase decisions. However, regardless of the different cultural background the perceived usefulness of online reviews can raise the usage frequency of online reviews.

 Currently, marketers utilize social media as a new marketing channel for promotion and communication. Social networking sites provided new services to companies using for the commercial purposes. For example, Fan pages in Facebook for products, brands, and companies directly connect companies to their target markets. Companies can have an opportunity to build better relationships with consumers through virtual communication in Fan pages (Forster et al., 2010). Social networking sites are continually evolving and developing to meet users’ needs.

4. Conceptual framework

1) The types of messages

 To develop an efficient social media strategy, companies first should know what information is talked about (Falls, 2009). In social media, companies are interested in browsing and collecting information, hosting or sponsoring communities, creating relationships, and sharing ideas, music, video, photos, entertainment, dislikes and likes with consumers (Hensel & Deis, 2010; Miller et al., 2009).

 Consumers share personal history, diary, photos, and interesting news on social networking sites. Information sharing is a key for participation of social media. Users rapidly shared useful information with their friends or other users who have same interest topics. The information obtained via the virtual communication affects consumer’s buying decision (Greene et al., 2010; Park & Lee, 2009; Pempek et al., 2009). In social media, there are various in the contents of messages posted by companies and consumers in social media. Therefore, companies need to know what contents are available in social media. The following hypotheses are generated:

 H1. Companies would vary in the types of messages they create.

 H2. Consumers would vary in the types of messages they create.

2) Social media and business performance

 Social media help companies to improve brand awareness, customer relations, and sales. Companies can get valuable insights from consumer’s comments and explore competition companies through using social media (Petrecca, 2012). In addition, companies make efforts to build brand awareness regardless of the business size. However, in practice larger companies manage social media differently from smaller companies (Ball, 2011). Larger companies tend to control the use of social media under formalized policies. On the other hand, the majority of small size companies employ social media without the formalized policies. Due to the restrictions, messages in more various contents may be posted on the social media of companies having smaller performance than companies having higher performance. Thus, we hypothesized:

 H3. Messages initiated by companies would be different according to the performance of companies.

 H4. Messages initiated by consumers would be different according to the performance of companies.

 Small companies need to commit to social media management to improve the business performance via social media. Companies need to manage regularly and consistently social media. Small businesses at start up stage can obtain more benefits by using social media because they build their business systems through direct communication with consumers (Ball, 2011; Hensel & Deis, 2010; LaunchHouse, 2012; Petrecca, 2012). Therefore, we expect that companies with low performance will frequently engaged in social media.

 H5. For messages initiated by companies, the reaction of consumers with low performance would be higher than the reaction of consumers with high performance.

 H6. For messages initiated by consumers, the reaction of consumers with low performance would be higher than the reaction of consumers with high performance.

 H7. For messages initiated by consumers, the reaction of companies with low performance would be higher than the reaction of companies with high performance.

Ⅲ. Method

 To meet the objectives of the study, the current research used content analysis to investigate the use of social media by apparel companies.

1. Sample

 For this research, the top U.S. 20 apparel companies were selected from “2010’s Apparel Top 50 Companies” ranked by profit margins. Two companies were removed because they were integrated with several brands. Finally, 18 apparel companies were re-ranked by annual sales for this research (see Table 1).

<Table 1> The top 18 U.S. apparel companies

 The sample consisted of apparel companies that focused on men (5%), women (11%), children (11%), men and women (33.3%), men, women, and children (38.8%). The annual sales of 18 apparel companies ranged between $ 19 billion and $ 280 million. The average sales amount was $ 3.186 billion. The number of employees ranged from 492 and 135,000; with an average of 18,065 employees. All companies had own online websites, and only one company did not use Facebook.

2. Instrument development

 A coding sheet was developed with five sections to investigate the targeted apparel companies’ websites and Facebook. The coding instrument was pretested on the Facebook pages of three companies to check appropriateness for the developed coding instrument. After testing the initial coding sheet, it was revised and completed as follows. The first section was to collect the companies’ background information such as target market, 2010’s sales, the number of employee and stores, and website’s existence. The second section was designed to check that companies are using social media. The third section reported the categories and the number of linkers on Facebook. In the fourth section, meaningful words in the messages started by companies were coded along with the posting time. It also included the posting times for the first comments and the last comments, and counted the total number of comments for each message. This same information was coded for the messages initiated by consumers. Additionally, for the messages initiated by consumers, the companies’ reactions were counted. Finally, it was investigated on Facebook Wall messages posted for two weeks from January 1, 2011 to January 14, 2011.

Ⅳ. Results

1. Data description

 The results for the practice use of social media by the apparel companies showed that 13 companies’ websites (72%) displayed the connection icons for easy access into social networking sites of the companies. Most connection icons were placed on the bottom sides of websites. 44% of the connection icons were located on the bottom-right of the websites. Only one company placed connection icons on the top- right. All the companies investigated used Facebook (100%), and also preferred to and Twitter (61%), YouTube (28%), and MySpace (6%). Some of the samples were using other social networking sites (e.g. Blog, Bukle, and Filckr) (see Table 2).

<Table 2> Frequency distribution of using social media

 The apparel companies had from 2,266 and 3,888,397 linkers on Facebook. On average 953,375 consumers liked the apparel companies’ Facebook. The companies displayed 3-17 categories on Facebook. Most companies were consisted not only with the basic categories such as ‘Info’ (100%), ‘Wall’ (94.1%), ‘Photo’ (88.2%), and ‘Video’ (82.4%). In addition, most companies designed differently Facebook with various categories such as ‘Poll’, ‘Job Career’, ‘Coupon Details’, ‘Sizes’, Discussions’, and ‘Photo Contests’ (see Table 3).

<Table 3> Frequency distribution of using Facebook

 For the period of data collection, 141 messages were initiated by the companies and 1,776 messages were initiated by the consumers (see Table 4). Even thought one company was using Facebook, the category of Wall was not displayed. Two companies did not allow consumers to create a new message. One company did not show their own messages, but  consumers communicated on the Facebook Wall.

<Table 4> Frequency distribution of messages initiated by companies vs. consumers

 Finally, only messages written in English were analyzed. 68 messages were not posted in English, so the subjects were not included in the final analysis because translation was impossible.

 Once a message was posted by a company, the first consumer comment, under the 141 messages initiated by the companies, appeared within 16 minutes, on average, of the initial posting. 56 comments were threaded and lasted on average of 8 days 17 hours. On the other hand, 1708 messages initiated by consumers, the first comments were posted, on average, in 19 minutes. The series of messages averagely continued 1.5 days and included 1.5 comments. Among messages initiated by consumers, the response message rate of company was 12%.

2. Hypothesis testing

Content analysis was conducted to test H1. 141 messages initiated by companies were reviewed and categorized into “Asking”, “Giving Information”, “Greeting”, “Recommending”, and “Others” (See Table 5). The asking category include contents asking 1) opinion about interesting topics such as new year’s resolutions or expected super bowl champions, 2) opinion before new products come out or after, 3) consumers’ outfit photos. In the information category, companies gave consumers variety information about companies, employee, complementary products, events, interesting news, magazines, catalogs, TV channels, products, technology, services, recruiting, and promotion. Greeting category included messages for Happy New Year, sorry message for not managing Facebook for a while, and thank you messages to express customers’ participation. Recommendation category included massages to recommend customers new styles and products. In addition, videos, photos, and advertisements were linked or uploaded. 66% of the messages included in giving information category.

<Table 5> Content analysis for messages initiated by apparel companies

 Content analysis was conducted to test H2. In the same period, messages initiated by consumers were investigated and categorized (see Table 6). 1,708 messages initiated by consumers were additionally added three categories (e.g., evaluating, presenting, suggesting). Consumers were asking companies or other users about companies (e.g., recruiting plans, events), social media (e.g., no working online website, usage of social networking sites), shopping experiences (e.g., online orders, stores, customer services), post-purchase (e.g., return, repair, cleaning), products (e.g., plans for new products’ coming out, product characteristics, product development processes, complementary products), sales (e.g., promotions, stock availability, store locations), and exchanging the used products among other users. Consumers positively or negatively evaluated brands, products, employees, on-off line shopping experiences, and services. Consumers informed about companies or stores, events, online or off line shopping experiences, product arrival or coming soon, raised price, sale, or promotions. Consumers greeted other users with Happy New Year, introducing messages, hello, thank you, or hoping to be friends. In addition, consumers just wrote brand names, brand’s slogan, competition brand names, or simple statements such as “I need something”, “will buy pants tonight”, “bought something”, and “I visited a store”. Only three messages were about the product recommendations. Consumers suggested companies these issues: promotions for other products, extent of items or lines, online websites, social networking sites, opening a new store in a specific area, replacement for out-of stock or old lines, products such as designs, sizes, colors, and fabrics. Consumers linked other websites and uploaded photos (e.g., outfit photos, photos for purchased products) and videos. 30.6% of the messages were involved in the asking category and 26.1% of the messages were regarding evaluations of brands, products, employees, and shopping experiences.

<Table 6> Content analysis for initial messages by consumers

<Table 6> Continued

 To analyze the relationship between the use of social media and the companies’ business performance, the companies were divided into two groups based on median split of the sales amount: high business performance group (n=8) and low business performance group (n=9). Chi-square analysis was used to analyze significant differences on the categories of messages initiated by companies according to companies’ business performance (see Table 7). The five categories (e.g., asking, giving information, greeting, recommending, others) were not significant different between high business performance companies and low business performance companies. Therefore, H3 was not supported.

<Table 7> Chi-square analysis results for messages initiated by companies

 For eight categories (e.g., asking, evaluating, greeting, giving information, presenting, recommending, suggesting, others) of messages initiated by consumers, chisquare analysis was conducted to find significant differences according to companies’ business performance (see Table 8). The results showed strongly significant difference between the two groups, χ²(7)= 244.16, p<.001. Thus, H4 was supported.

<Table 8> Chi-square analysis results for messages initiated by consumers

 t-test was used to know the reaction (threaded comments) for messages according to company business performance (see Table 9). The reaction for the messages posted by companies was not significant differences between high and low business performance groups. H5 was not supported. However, for the messages initiated by consumers the reaction was significant different between high (M=.44, S.D=1.42) and low business performance companies (M=2.37, S.D=3.57), t(1706)=－13.77, p<.001. H6 was accepted. In addition, low perform ance com panies (M=.30, S.D=.537) posted feedback messages more often than high performance companies (M=.04, S.D=.209), t(1706)=－12.22, p<.001. This finding supported H7.

<Table 9> t-test results of reaction for messages according to company’s performance

Ⅴ. Conclusion

1. Discussion and implications

 This study provided an initial exploration of social media used by apparel companies. It was identified how apparel companies utilized social media and what they communicated with consumers on Facebook Wall. This research showed that most apparel companies used social media and preferred Facebook more than other social networking sites. The websites of companies displayed connection icons of social media for easy access. Apparel companies were differently designed on Facebook as using various categories reflecting brands’ features. It was impressive that some companies showed various and creative ways on Facebook to communicate with their current and potential consumers. On the other hand, some companies’ actions were inactive on Facebook. For example, some companies never responded to consumers’ questions or never allowed messages created by consumers.

 The messages initiated by both companies and consumers included various content. Companies posted messages to ask customers’ opinion, to greet users, and to recommend their products. Over half of the messages were to give useful information related to event, sale, promotion, new services, and recruiting. The messages initiated by consumers included more varied content: consumers asking stores’ locations, products’ colors, sizes, stocks, and prices before and after buying. On Facebook, consumers evaluated the companies and the purchased products. A few messages were related to shopping experience, and compliments to employees. Consumers also shared information regarding their hands on shopping experiences and useful shopping tips. Interestingly, consumers gave companies new suggestions for color, sizes, and details in specific items, possible locations for opening of new stores, replacement of products in previous lines or out of stock items, and line extensions. The suggestions would be a basis for building new business strategy of apparel companies.

 According to the companies’ business performances, the reaction of companies was significantly different. In the messages initiated by the consumers, companies with low business performance responded more progressively and actively than companies with high business performance. In this point, companies with lower business performance realized social media as a more important marketing tool to strengthen a brand loyalty. Companies with higher business performance showed apathetic attitudes for consumers’ opinion on Facebook. To seek sustainable growth, however, the companies need to communicate with consumers on social media.

 In conclusion, our findings suggest that social media can be a useful channel to make successful brands in a rapidly changing fashion industry. Companies can garner customers’ reactions to products and get a variety of opinions in a short time through communicating directly with their customers. Furthermore, customers’ useful opinions can be reflected into their new strategy. This research would be a guideline about how apparel companies use and manage social media when apparel companies jump into social media.

2. Limitation and future research

 This research had several limitations. The first limitation was the issue about terms. This research used interchangeably social media and social networking sites. Even though each term was defined from the literature reviews, readers might be still confused by the two terms. Therefore, in following research the terms should be redefined by specific standards. Using consistent terms would improve and enlarge the discipline area of social media.

 Second, the messages posted during two weeks were collected. The specific period for messages was a standard to compare consistent use of social media by apparel companies. Due to the standard of limited time, some companies represented no messages on Facebook Wall although the companies actually had the messages posted by companies or consumers beyond the specific period. Therefore, messages posted for longer periods would be required to investigate for future research.

 Lastly, this study included 17 U.S apparel companies for the content analysis. In the U.S. there are over 50,000 apparel companies. Therefore, the sample was not enough to represent the use of social media in the U.S. apparel industry. More apparel companies would be included in future research.