Lululemon and Social Media
“Mindfulness, sweat, community, and more,” boasts the Lululemon page, “we’re here to inspire you to live the #sweatlife everyday.” It is this statement that seems to govern the Lulu social media channels as a thesis does an essay. With a social media presence spanning Youtube, Twitter and Instagram, Lulu caters each platform’s content to its best capabilities.
With Youtube, Lulu makes use of the of the platforms long form videos, using the platform to advertise the life that one can lead in Lulu clothing in a fully fleshed out way. The channel features meditation, yoga, and workouts all delivered in 5 to 45 minute videos; the instructors of each specific video, while decked out in Lululemon wear, are all trying to drive home the same point that life is healthier and better in Lululemon. While the channel does little to sell the clothing, it takes great strides in developing Lululemon — across what is likely hours of content — as not only a clothing brand but a lifestyle.
Differently, Lululemon makes quick work of its company Twitter account, using the 280 character constraint to its benefit. Rather than flooding its feed with wordy tweets, Lulu uses its Twitter to frequently point clients in various directions, using the 280 character limit to peak their interest before sending them off to the Lulu website, Instagram or latest seminar. In this case, Lulu uses their Twitter account as a trail of breadcrumbs meant to lead their clients to bigger and better things, leaving the heavy lifting weight to platforms that allow them more characters.
Much of the heavy lifting is done by the Lululemon Instagram page, which sees a middle ground between the short form of their Twitter and the long form of their Youtube. The Lulu Instagram opts for opts for short, quick IGTV’s, reels and stories that fit with the fast paced world of scrolling that is Instagram culture. Speed is the name of the game here with the content being straight and to the point, with quick and easy navigational links to the Lulu website that work well with the fast paced world of Instagram clicking and scrolling. Here, the posts are meant to do the most in the least amount of time, as seen below.
Despite all this, however, the Lululemon social media feeds feel largely inaccessible to the average consumer. All the brand ambassadors, and featured clients all have a glossed over, elite feel to them: boasting Herculean abs, toned arms and bulging calves — there is no feel of an everyman or everywoman here. The likelihood is that a very small percentile of the Lulu clientele indeed looks like this, and having a brand so overwhelmingly bombard with you people radiating perfect health makes the regular consumer feel ostracized and small. With this being said, there is also a disappointing lack in body diversity. As previously mentioned everyone featured across all the platforms follow a particularly standard model build, which makes the brand seem off limits or inconsiderate to average or plus sized consumers.
Looking at Nike’s same social media platforms, I do feel that Lululemon does do a better job at letting its clothes and brand do the talking. Nike’s social media platforms are overcrowded with athlete bandwagons featuring everyone from Cristiano Ronaldo to LeBron James! The Nike brand does little to develop itself beyond being a brand worn by popular, fan-favourite athletes instilling much of its value into who wears Nike as opposed to who you can become when wearing Nike. While similar to Lululemon, the Nike Youtube channel does feature workout videos for the Nike client, the feel across all their platforms is that Nike is an overwhelmingly male brand featuring little to no women across any of their social media platforms. Similar to its Instagram, Nike does little to expand its scope on Twitter focusing with nearly all but one of their last several tweets featuring popular athletes in Nike as opposed to real, working people.
