They are tweeting what they think, their opinions and basically just saying where they are. How relevant is that?

Martine Nieuwenhuis, Fashion and Retail E-Commerce Authority, stresses the importance of maintaining values and self-awareness in social media strategy to keep your brand relevant and authentic - the new chic in e-commerce digital marketing.

Martine studied fashion design at Arnhem Academy of Fine Arts, an institution with a long and successful history of producing successful designers, and has a background in fashion management. Her deep understanding of brand strategy comes from ten years of professional experience in the fashion industry, where Martine worked for a wide range of brands in the areas  of strategy, marketing and e-commerce. Her passion revolves around marketing, fashion, lifestyle, and retail - never losing interest in the investigation behind the motivations of customers.

Why are they shopping for a certain brand? What is the position of the brand in its social environment? How can a brand have contact with its potential customers? I like to think about customer experiences rather than sales, and for me that's my motivation for what I'm doing now in my work.

The biggest mistakes Martine sees in  fashion and retail e-commerce social media strategy is not demonstrating awareness, not investing in a proper strategy, and lack of diligence in the evaluation of the person or people that will execute the strategy. In her view, companies are not always conscious of what they are starting, and along the way, the attention to the social media channel fades away. Brands should be aware of the negative impact this could possibly have on their customers.

I like the company but the company does not like me because it is not talking back anymore.

What inspires you most about your work? 

Before your customer was anonymous. In the social networking fast-paced world you know who she is, where she lives,etc. Actually, you know from your online customers than your offline customers. For me the whole study around the customers motivations is my passion - to work with people and to know everything about them. It's not about selling, it's about being the partner of your customer.

What should brands be aware of with their e-commerce customer engagement strategy?

On the level of engagement, they should realize that online and offline, your brand is visible. It's visible to your competition, customers, and employees. If you want to be a strong brand, you need to bond with all of these parties in a successful way.

In your profession, how difficult is it for you to be a "savvy networker"?

I'm not busy networking. I'm busy doing what I like the most and I hope to inspire people to come along. I'm not in it just to have a big network. I like what I do and I like to tell people about it, but they should be really interested - not only networking for the network. I'm not interested in one million friends, I'm interested in five good ones and building strong relationships with them.

Erick Schonfeld, Co-Editor at Techcrunch, warned 'Don't Be Fooled By Vanity Metrics', a mistake companies make by over-valuing social media follower stats as a way to measure customer engagement.

Vanity metrics are things like registered users, downloads, and raw pageviews. They are easily manipulated, and do not necessarily correlate to the numbers that really matter: active users, engagement, the cost of getting new customers, and ultimately revenues and profits. The latter are more actionable metrics.

The term 'vanity metrics' was coined by serial entrepreneur Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, due out on bookshelves Fall 2011. Ries explains the danger in not differentiating between illusion and truth in Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics, and explains that "most analytics packages are configured by default to provide mostly reports on vanity metrics. That makes sense, since they are the easiest to measure and they tend to make you feel good about yourself."

Vanity metrics tend to take our attention away from this reality by focusing our attention on abstract groups and concepts. Instead, take a look at data that is happening on a per-customer or per-segment basis.

The two key points Martine advises companies to focus on in order to improve communication with the audience via social media and avoid Vanity Metrics are:

Realize who you are talking to.

Depending who you are talking to, you can analyze how these people want to be talked to and what are their habits online and offline. There's not one way to do it, but you should be aware of who you are communicating with. For example, teenagers or 20 year olds have a completely different online behavior than 40 year olds.

Be relevant.

If you communicate with your client online, you should be aware of how she behaves there and what she appreciates and what she doesn't. Doing what everyone else is doing is not always good. With social media, it's only relevant for the brand if the customer is using it. Social, mobile and online media are inevitable tools that brands should use to further bond with their customers.  Being there and being relevant with these media can make a brand top-of-mind with their customers and if executed correctly, the (only) guarantee to the future success of brands.

For Martine Nieuwenhuis, online sales is more than just a webshop. Currently, Martine advises brands on how to use these media to tell their stories and how these media should be integrated in a multichannel brand approach.

Learn more about Martine Nieuwenhuis on Linkedin.

Photo contribution by © Wendeliendaan.com