A few urban clothing brands do it better than others when it comes to Facebook. Here’s a look at the strategies that make the following four apparel pages pop.

Rocawear

Rocawear defines the lifestyle for today’s young hip consumer offering a variety of jewelry, fragrances, outerwear, dresses and more; so the company’s Facebook strategy reflects this with varied content and original promotions.

Quite often Rocawear’s page shares relevant photos, videos and polls about their own products, celebrity happenings, recent events and insights into the hip hop culture.

This varied content is super enticing for existing fans to interact with, simple because people are visual and enjoy looking at photos and videos.

As a result, Rocawear has more than one percent of its audience “talking about this” brand on Facebook; one percent may seem low, but for the mainly passive Facebook audience this is hard to achieve.

Why is the content they share more enticing than other pages? In the screenshot above, you can see how Rocawear shared a branded YouTube video that highlights the Dynamic Diplomats of Double Dutch. The post simply asks “Can you do this?”

It’s a straightforward call to action in 17 characters asking users if they can double dutch themselves, tempting fans to leave a comment to an easy question. The video is simple, clear and short, just like the attention span of a Facebook fan.

Rocawear not only included the YouTube video in the link function from the Facebook wall, but also added a custom shortened URL to the post giving users another way of reaching the video and watching it. Since the URL was shortened, it’s helpful that it was customized to say “thatsrwdynamic.”

This helps Facebook users have a better understanding of where this shortened link will take them if they click. Posts like this help increase clicks on their shared links, interactions with their posts, views on their videos and ultimately more visibility for Rocawear.

Baby Phat

As the premier metropolitan fashion brand, Baby Phat has consistently remained digital savvy with its outreach efforts throughout the years.

The company’s Facebook page features both engaging content and a one of a kind Facebook shopping experience. Facebook e-commerce is still in it’s early stages for a few reasons, but nevertheless Baby Phat is ahead of the curve with their custom shopping platform directly on its page.

The retailer believes that when Facebook users are browsing the network they prefer to stay within the site and not be sent off to an external website, especially when it’s unexpected.

This way fans can stay on Facebook and still have the opportunity to buy their favorite Baby Phat products. The shopping application isn’t merely an extension of the website but a fully functioning store suited to the Facebook platform.

Overall their page provides value to its fans, turning them into repeat visitors and occasional shoppers.

Ecko Unltd

Visually branding your Facebook page goes a long way towards gaining the trust of your existing and prospective fans, making your page an enticing destination with valuable content.

As a global fashion and urban life style brand Ecko Unltd offers a consistent branded experience on Facebook, similar to its other marketing channels.

They’ve utilized the photo banner at the top of their page to include custom images of their logo in a graffiti font, echoing their brands feel in another place for fans to see.

These five images consistently change position, so Ecko Unltd took this into account when utilizing their photo banner ensuring that no matter the order the same branded message appears.

Timberland

Having custom tabs throughout your Facebook page can help give your fans a variety of destinations and resources to peruse, so that people keep coming back.

Timberland’s variety of tabs on its Facebook page accurately reflects their drive to encourage conversations around their page and subsequently their brand.

The company uses a photo contest tab that aims to bring higher levels of interaction from new and old fans alike, tempting fans to upload photos of their mountain chic style.

This tab, known as The Girlfriend Getaway Sweepstakes, is targeting the female audience members of the Timberland empire offering select fans Timberland boots or a weekend giveaway.

Promotions have proven to increase engagement on Facebook time and time again, Timberland is no exception to the rule.

Some of the other tabs, focus on various product lines Timberland offers, like the Original Boot.

The tabs give fans another look at the products they’ve come to know and love, but with the ability to share their experiences and memories with this product.

The Earthkeepers, Plant Trees and Timberland Hortiscope tabs all feature a variety of nature related content, giving fans another perspective on the Timberland brand.

Each tab gives fans a unique way to connect with the page and share their experience either by watching videos, creating a virtual forest or by taking a quiz.

Brian Honigman is a social media account manager at LunaMetrics.

First it was politics, then it was sports, now Facebook is teaming up to try and get some market shares in the fashion world. The boys, and girls, over at Facebook have partnered with Vouge.com to create a “How Fashionable Are You?” competition.

The competition is simple go to the London Fashion Show group, upload an image of you in the must have fashion of the season (leopard skin tights anyone) and see if you win. The winner gets a VIP trip to the London Fashion Show and I am sure a ton of free swag.

The thing that sparked my interest, no the fashion I wear the same from 10 years ago, was the partnership. Facebook is making a habit of partnering with companies that can expand its demographic and increase its market share. I enjoy seeing Facebook take an active role in finding new users for its service.

I think a good deal of start ups can take a page from Facebook. Instead of waiting for more users to discover Facebook, the Facebook team is finding new ways to incorporate users bases from other services. I would be interested in seeing if Facebook could make a go at the Nascar crowd and the Soccer (football) crowd.

I can just see teams of market researchers at Facebook pouring over marketing data from around the globe trying to figure out new ways to hunt down users. No matter what Facebook plans to do next you can be assured it will be a partnership with a product or service that has an undeserved user base in the Facebook world.

What would you like to see Facebook partner with next? What other venues or services do you think could benefit from partnering with Facebook? Let me know.

I received an email this morning from BustedTees.com telling me about a new application that they just released called “T-Shirt Money Maker.” I have been extremely skeptical about making money via Facebook applications. That was until I saw yesterday’s data which suggested profiles are the number one source of application installs. These are installs that result from user clicks. The only way to place an ad in a profile at this point is through an application.

I would argue that an ad in the profile is going to be much more effective than Flyer ads. This isn’t backed by any sort of quantitative data though. While this would make for a great research paper, my hypothesis remains that it is in fact possible to sell things via profiles. While it may not be as profitable for the users that decide to add the application to their profile, the owner of the application who can aggregate all the user profiles has a significant promotional opportunity. The real key to any of these applications is going to be provide enough incentive to the users that have the application.

For BustedTees, I think they have provided users with enough incentive. The incentive is that they get to display entertaining images on their profile. Whether or not they sell any t-shirts, users will have entertaining content that is displayed on their profiles. This is the only reason that I think this application will have any chance of being successful. The Visual Bookself application and Flixter’s Movies application are the only applications that I’ve seen successfully leverage affiliate sales through the profile. This is because people want to show off their movies and books to their friends.

Soon enough a large number of people may be showing off their Busted T-Shirts if BustedTees has anything to say about it. I will follow-up with BustedTees in the coming months to see if their application is successful at generating sales. In regards to the application, it is extremely simple. First, you pick the t-shirts that you would like to display on your profile. Second, you enter in your information for how you would like to receive payment. You’re done! Now you can sit back and watch the money roll it. At a minimum you can have some pretty entertaining T-Shirts to show off on your profile. If you like entertaining t-shirts, check out the T-Shirt Money Maker application

T-Shirt Money Maker Home

T-Shirt Money Maker Settings Page

T-Shirt Money Maker Profile Display

Want an easy way to browse through brand name clothing, put together cool outfits and show them off on your profile? Brand me provides a fun and easy way to create your own custom outfits that you can show off to your friends. I spent hours playing dress up this afternoon. Well, not really, but I’m sure that would have been a lot of fun. As of now you can select from men and women’s clothing and can choose from H&M, Land’s End and Levi Strauss brands. This application will definitely be better once a wider selection of brands is provided. I had commented on this type of application previously when I was discussing possible ways of leveraging the Facebook platform. Why could this application have such a powerful impact? From the advertising standpoint it helps you and your friends to share a brand experience on Facebook. From a sales perspective, individuals could create theoretical outfits with their exact sizes and then friends and family can come through and purchase those outfits via an affiliate program. While this is a first shot at allowing users to show off their favorite brands, I think this is headed in the right direction. If you want to play dress up on Facebook, go check out the Brand Me application.

Want to have a way to organize your outfits? The future of Facebook will include virtual shopping, and wishlists that are integrated with friends. Go view what clothes, DVDs, or books your friends like. Polyvore is simply a step in that direction. Browse any online store and add a clothing item to your Facebook virtual wardrobe. Mix and match clothes until you find that perfect outfit. While I personally will not be spending much time organizing my clothing, I’m sure that there are a lot of people that do (most likely girls). Although, if you want to send me an outfit that would make me look particularly dashing, feel free! I love to receive gifts. So if you want to go spend some time mixing and matching various outfits until they are of your liking, go grab Polyvore.