Fashion and Beauty Marketing 101 – Models, Build Your Personal Brand
All through this week I have been running into articles that had the same overall message and then the other day I had gone into the Barnes and Nobles and saw the Sports Illustrated cover where it looked like she was taking her bikini bottom off. At that moment I questioned if I wanted to be a photographer. I didn’t get into photography to exploit women. I do realize there are women out there like Kim Kardashan that want to exploit themselves but isn’t it time to be known for more than just an object and still be successful? Maybe it was meant for me to come across those articles because those articles shared a positive and important message. I know it’s Sunday but I didn’t post today to preach lol just to share some useful information models should know that can transform their career if they are not doing this already.
Below are some headlines of articles I read this past week that show how using social media can transform your modeling career.
One of the best quotes from all the articles was this one.
“When it comes to landing major beauty and fashion contracts, having a built-in social following can be a priceless advantage. If a model happens to come with a few thousand or a few million followers, that's amazing for brands," notes Harper's Bazaar executive editor Laura Brown. "Especially if you're a brand that wants to target a new, younger demographic, you'd have to consider [hiring] those girls in a second."
Here are some key points from each of the articles.
“It's that social media clout—not to mention the stunning face, killer body and irresistible personality—that has helped propel Hadid, seemingly overnight, from up-and-coming model to global fashion celebrity. And brands have taken notice. Over the past year, Hadid has scored big contracts with the likes of Tom Ford, Victoria's Secret Pink and Maybelline.”
“Lord and Taylor noticed the power of bloggers. They chose 50 and gave the same handkerchief paisley patterned dress from the newly debuted Design Lab collection. The bloggers posted a picture of themselves in the garment and added the appropriate hashtag with it. The dress sold out in less than a week.”
“A beauty vlogger landed a CoverGirl campaign. She didn’t just start out with millions of viewers. She grew her fan base from hundreds to thousands to millions. CoverGirl named Ingrid Nilsen as their official Glambassador. Nilsen will share inspiration and video tutorials on CoverGirl’s YouTube channel throughout 2015.”
“Personality is selling clothes more so than anything else right now. Traditional ads are not as effective.”
The one thing that was consistent through all the articles was the power of social media and the importance of building your following.
If I was a model and I modeled in a lot of fashion shows I would concentrate on building my PERSONAL BRAND. I would have my own blog, be all over social media, and build my own community of followers.
Don’t just be a clothes rack be a BRAND. I hear all the time from models that nobody wants to pay models out here. What are you doing that tells a designer or a boutique that you are different than anybody else? Let me give you an example. Let’s say there are 2 models.
Model A has been modeling for a year. She has 400 people on her friends list on facebook and instagram. She has done 8 shows locally in the year.
Model B has 8,000 people on her friend’s list on facebook. 10,000 friends on instagram. She has a following of 7,000 people on a blog devoted to fashion. She has about 6,000 people subscribed to her youtube page. She has done 8 shows. 2 shows were in VA. 2 shows were in North Carolina. 2 shows were in New York. 2 show shows in Atlanta. Every time this model sends out a message to her social media following people come to shows and people from different states come to buy what she models so the designer/boutique is making money.
Which model do you think a designer,boutique, or cosmetic line will want to hire?
One last point about social media. Social media followers are starting to be the next currency. There’s no doubt about that. There is a pop-up store located in NY called OnePiece that was able to reach 21 million social media users using the hashtag #SocialCurrency. Their plan was to give people discounts based on how many followers a customer had throughout all their social media platforms. According to the article, every 500 followers equaled $1 toward a purchase, and customers could earn an additional $20 when they uploaded and shared a hashtagged image from the store. For the weekend of their grand opening, customers earned more than $12,000 in Social Currency discounts. This may sound like a loss but the company now has more than 12.5 million social media followers because of the campaign. I don’t think they will be lacking in sales for the forseeable future and they have a community of followers that they will be able to share their brand story and connect with.
If I was a model, I would start building my personal brand and start creating a community of followers because having all those followers can translate into great things for your career. Social followers is the new currency. You don’t have to exploit yourself to be successful. You can build your following and one day be approached by major companies and still get paid. Everything is possible. It depends on you how hard you want to work to be successful.
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