For one of my previews, I interviewed Kinvara Balfour about her panel Content is Still King: A New Narrative Calls. In this preview, Balfour mentioned that she hoped people who attended the panel would leave it with a new knowledge for whats to come, new ideas on how to create content and where the content will go. To answer these questions, Balfour had a panel of professionals in the fashion industry to talk about what consumers should expect for the future, how they create their content and where they publish that content. The panel included  Rachel Waller from Farfetch, Olly Rzysko from Primark, and Steven Lammertink from The Cirqle.

In the panel, the panelist mentioned some of the different platforms and ways to create content. Two ways that were mentioned the most were Instagram and film. Rzysko said that Instagram has more engagement than film because with film you can’t hit a like button, but Waller added that with film, you can tell much richer stories.

In order to post content, you need to know who your audience is. Lammertink said that brands need to have a good understanding with who they are working with to know and connect to the audience. Waller agreed and mentioned that it’s important to understand the audience and to know exactly what the look and tone of the brand needs to be. Rzysko also added that it’s important to listen to the customer, know who they are, and what they want to see.

When you know the audience, what content should be provided? Lammertink said that mobile should be the first point. Mobile devices are on the rise and he believes that content should look good on mobile devices first before anything else. He also mentioned that content should give feeling and emotion, “Make someone feel something by showing them something… add a bit of emotion to it and make someone smile.” he said. Rzysko stated that everything that is put on your social media feed can be an influence and comparing written content to visual content, written content lives on and people can tell a deeper story and what it means to them.