Gigi Hadid, Tommy Hilfiger, Instagram AW16 at NYFW

There’s a lot of data emerging to help us answer the question “who won the NYFW social media war?” Some of it’s a bit contradictory at the moment but it’s also fascinating. So what’s the answer? Well it wasn’t Tommy and Gigi (I used this picture because I liked it), although they were in the running.

Well, so far it looks like Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Coach were all winners, as well as music superstars Kanye West with his Yeezy line and Rihanna with her Fenty collab with Puma. At least that’s according to figures from marketing technology company Amobee Brand Intelligence.

Kors managed to garner nearly 71,000 Tweets and Lauren nearly 47,000 during NYFW.

And according to data that social media search company Ground Signal gave Reuters, both Kors and Lauren were also among the big winners on other social media channels. Apparently, they were among the top five mentioned brands on Instagram (it would have been good if they’d told us about the other three too!)

Yet despite fashion brands getting major social media traffic, interest in them was dwarfed by interest in Kanye West’s Yeezy offer and Rihanna’s latest for Puma’s Fenty line. They garnered 800,000 and 140,000 Tweets, respectively, Amobee said.

However, according to data from ListenFirst media, Victoria Beckham “won” New York Fashion Week. She got the most ‘engagement’ online with her show on February 14. Her digital engagement rating was 1,337,169. Michael Kors was second with a rating of 864,913, Kanye was third, and Calvin Klein fourth. Tommy Hilfiger was only seventh by this measure, although it must be said that his Instagram Pit and his use of Gigi Hadid certainly meant that his Insta-engagement was high quality even if it wasn’t the biggest on volume.

Does any of this really matter? It certainly does. Interestingly, Ground Signal also said that a third of those posting on Instagram around NYFW were aged below 25 and it’s that key youth market that brands want to reach, even brands whose products sell at prices most young people can’t afford (remember, for every $1,000 jacket there’s a $100 diffusion line handbag or a $50 perfume).

The fact is that social media ‘likes’ now count for as much as the more wordy thumbs-ups from legit fashion critics. Lisa Pomerantz, a Michael Kors spokeswoman, told Reuters: “We know we need to be where our customer is, and today she is on all of these platforms consuming more content more quickly than ever before.”