Brief:

• M.Gemi, a direct-to-consumer luxury footwear brand started in 2015, has increased sales and its social media following with weekly sneak peeks of new styles broadcast on Instagram Live, Glossy reported. The brand's real-time videos are hosted by Kayleigh Harrington, an influencer M.Gemi recruited on Instagram two months ago.
• M.Gemi films the videos in its offices and broadcasts them every Monday at 9:30 a.m. EST, and then posts them 30 minutes later to its e-commerce site, per Glossy. Harrington shows off the shoes from multiple angles while describing them in detail, providing style tips and answering viewer questions. Count-down clocks appear Friday mornings on the company website, while emails and social posts advertise the time of the next episode. 
• Since the "Monday Drop" videos first appeared on April 9, traffic to M.Gemi's website on Mondays has jumped 51%, and sales have risen 20%, according to Glossy. The brand has boosted its weekly Instagram followers by 11% to 105,000. Engagement including likes, video views and comments has grown 109%. The success has attracted the interest of new media partners as well, such as Rent the Runway.  

Insight:

M.Gemi's strategy with "Monday Drop" shows how retailers are more often trying to drive not just brand awareness but also online commerce through newer social channels like Instagram Live. By using the live video format and a recognizable influencer to detail how its shoes are made in Italy, M.Gemi can tout the quality of its products and also the pieces' exclusivity, and then link that content back to its website for people interested in purchasing.

Drop sales, which typically offer limited-edition products outside of traditional seasonal schedules, have been a common way of selling streetwear, but are gaining traction in the luxury space. A sense of exclusivity — once created largely through the buzz of "in-store only" promotions — is easier to facilitate through mobile channels to reach a larger swath of shoppers. 

Marketing strategies like M.Gemi's, which closely blend digital and social content with commerce, are being more frequently adopted by legacy retailers as well. For its spring campaign, Macy's ran a styling contest between influencers on Instagram Live Share, the platform's new feature for simultaneous group streaming, for example.

Macy's this week also overhauled its Instagram presence to feature more "in-the-moment" imagery, a greater number of style ambassadors, along with a continuation of its work with the creator network Tongal on shoppable social content.