Social Media Marketing in the Fashion Industry: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

Social media has become an integral part of fashion brands marketing and communication practices. The rapid proliferation and ubiquitous adoption of social media by both fashion brands and consumers, has remarkably increased academic scholarship on the use of social media marketing in fashion over the last decade. Despite increasing interest in understanding the use of social media for marketing in fashion, a systematic review that provides a holistic picture of current state of research, topics covered, areas addressed on social media marketing in specific context of the fashion industry remains providential. The purpose of this thesis is to address this gap by critically reviewing existing literature to synthesise and organise the main aspects in social media marketing and provide recommendation on possible future research directions. This thesis uses the systematic literature review methodological approach to collect and synthesise academic literature on social media marketing in fashion context. 92 research papers published in the peer-reviewed journals were systematically collected form Scopus and EBSCO databases, and thematically analysed to reveal social media marketing research themes in context of fashion. Five research themes were identified from literature review; (1) social media marketing tactics of fashion brands; (2) social media marketing and consumer behaviour; (3) social media marketing and electronic word of mouth communication; (4) social media marketing and consumer brand relationship; (5) social media marketing and other-brand related outcomes. The most important research issue is the emphasis of existing literature on luxury fashion brands, and little substantial research on mass-market fashion segment such as fast-fashion brands, fashion SME, online only fashion retailers, sports fashion brands. In addition, various other future research agendas have also been proposed with respect to each of the five research themes to address existing gaps in the literature and take forward the research on social media marketing in the fashion industry. The contribution and originality of this thesis is rooted in synthesising and providing a holistic view of social media marketing research in specific fashion industry context, which has not been integrated to date.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Amy Benstead (Supervisor) & Patsy Perry (Supervisor)