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The Web 2.0 and social media have substantially modified the way the brands promote their products and services. Today’s consumers readily turn themselves towards the product recommendations of their peers, to the detriment of traditional media and supports. As a result, the fashion bloggers increasingly collaborate with brands that are interested in the way they disseminate their influential opinions within their Web communities. 
In this context, our exploratory research aims at better understanding how the partnerships between Belgian fashion brands and bloggers materialise. We explore the factors leading the Belgian brands to collaborate with such influencers, and vice versa. The issues to which the brands and the bloggers are confronted in the context of their collaborations, as well as the current trends of the fashion blogosphere, are also addressed. Our work starts with a review of the current literature. Then, the interviews of six Belgian amateur fashion bloggers and three representatives of Belgian fashion brands allow us to go further in our analysis and to present the situation in Belgium in 2016. 
While the brands usually take the initiative to reach the bloggers, we discover that the latter do no hesitate to reach the brands spontaneously. The Belgian brands we interviewed tend to leverage blog marketing actions that fit their strategy, although the return on investment of such activities remains difficult to compute. On the other side, we find that the bloggers are quite transparent towards their readers when it comes to their collaborations with brands. In such contexts, our study highlights the importance of the interest of the bloggers towards the brands and their desire of remaining unpressurised. Moreover, we find that those bloggers are driven by their passion for writing and other needs they use to satisfy through their blog. In addition, we show that those writers can be motivated by the incentives they receive from the brands, including free products or invitations to events. Our results suggest the importance to approach them properly and the need to foster close relationships being sustainable and mutually beneficial. Eventually, we address the legislative blur surrounding the blog marketing practices in Belgium. In terms of fashion blogging trends, we highlight the importance of the mobile social media Instagram and Snapchat; more instantaneous and easier to browse compared to the blogs, they seem particularly appreciated by the followers.

blog marketing --- eWOM --- Belgium --- fashion brand --- fashion blogger --- relationship --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Marketing