Ten years ago, Instagram was unheard of.
Today, it boasts over 1 billion users worldwide with 500 million daily active users. Over 25 million business owners are already on Instagram. It is estimated that 75.3% US businesses will be on Instagram by 2020.
What do all these numbers tell you?
These statistics tell you that the majority of your customers are already on Instagram. A lot of your competitors are leveraging it to grow their business.
Clearly, if you don’t use the right tactics to supercharge your marketing strategy, it is likely that you will be left behind.
Why not learn from fashion Influencers who have already nailed it? Before diving in, let’s first answer why you need to switch to a business account! Also, keep posted till the end for a roundup of 10 coolest fashion Influencers.
Switch to a Business Account on Instagram
If you are already on Instagram but haven’t switched to the Business Account, then do it ASAP. You can do this by simply going to the Settings and click “Switch to Business Account”.
If you intend on making an account on it, then make sure to sign up with your business email, not your personal email or Facebook account.
Switching to a business account has many benefits. The platform has many free perks for businesses such as their analytics called Insights. Also, it empowers you to create and publish Ads.
What Is a Fashion Influencer?
In simple words, a fashion Influencer is someone who creates fashion-related content and has a huge following on social media channels. Due to their huge popularity, they have the power to influence their audiences’ decisions.
For example, Ashley is a fashion Influencer who has 1.2 million followers on Instagram. She also has a Youtube channel called bestdressed with 3.06 million subscribers. Looking through her feed, you will realize that she mainly creates fashion-related content.
Why Should You Learn From a Fashion Influencer?
My business involves selling gym equipment. What does that have to do with fashion? Good question!
But as a business learning to increase your followers or reach, you can learn a lot from those who already have millions of followers. Also, you can collaborate with an Influencer in your niche.
For example, Alexa Chung has a whopping 3.1 million followers. So, there must be something that she is doing right, which you can do too.
Once you learn the tactics, begin growing your reach, have the time, and have money, then you can even invest in Influencer Marketing.
Ok, now let’s dive in!
1. Create Compelling Content
Instagram is a platform, which engages the sense of sight the most out of all the five senses. Hence, it is extremely important that you create good content.
Fashion Influencers know just how to create good content for their audience. At the same time, they ensure that their posts reflect their personality. Sometimes, they even create branded content and sponsored posts without sounding too ‘salesy’.
As a business, the first thing your customers will see are your posts so you need to know how to create content that is visually appealing. Your posts should show your personality and set you apart from thousands of others.
Sure, you will be posting pictures of your products or posts related to your services but make sure your page is not stuffy.
You can’t be just a business selling your stuff, you need to form your own tribe or Instagram Community.
2. Hold Contests and Giveaways
Contests and giveaways are a great way to engage with your audience. Influencers often giveaway products.
Influencers include in their giveaway posts what their followers need to do in order to enter the giveaway. The posts may also include the date the winner will be announced.
Now, coming to the important question. How will it help you?
It increases the engagement of people with your business. It gives them a reason to follow you. It also incentivizes existing followers and makes them look forward to something similar in future.
Giveaways and contests also help to increase your followers. How? For example, you can ask your followers to share the giveaway post with three of their friends on Instagram. Those people may actually end up following you.
3. Depict Your Unique Brand Voice
Blog writers are told to include a hook in their introduction and a catchy headline. Why? Because the first impression really matters.
The first impression determines whether the target audience will stay or not. It is important to show your unique brand voice through your page. The first glance should communicate who you are.
Your profile picture, biography, and initial posts will speak about you.
For example, let’s look at the Instagram page of Negin Mirsalehi, who is a Dutch Influencer.
The first glance immediately tells us that she is a Fashion Influencer. She has a short biography, which has a link to her YouTube channel and a link to her company page(Gisou Hair). This tells us that she is also an entrepreneur.
So, we learn that you need to keep a short, clear biography-which tells what your company does. Upload a profile picture preferably of your company logo.
Coming to her posts!
Compare them with Ashley’s posts, which say that her fashion sense is more girly and trendy. While Negin’s posts scream luxury.
Following the above tips will help grow your followers and eventually increase your sales.
4. Engage With Your Audience
You are entering into a relationship with your customers! It isn’t a typical buyer-seller relationship where the buyer comes to your store, buys stuff, and goes. End of story!
Think of your page as a Come-Come Cat (Maneki-neko), which will lure your customer to your store. Make him feel like a valued customer!
Influencers know just how to connect with their followers. They reply to the comments on their posts, use the poll-feature to answer their questions or to take their opinion. Running contests, giveaways, and featuring User Generated Content is another great way to connect with your customers.
5. Make the Most of Different Features
Open the Instagram Page of any Fashion Influencer. What do you see?
She or He has many pictures as her posts. Many of them even have filters on them. Oh! Some of the posts are in the form of videos…
The point is that Instagram has a lot of features such as Stories, IGTV, filters, stickers and quizzes, Story Highlights, Instagram Live and so much more. You may have not heard of them or haven’t utilized all of them.
You can’t miss out on these features!
Live videos enable real-time engagement opportunities, while you broadcast, they can post comments in the comments section. While stories disappear after 24 hours, Story Highlights let you save some of your best stories. IGTV can be leveraged to show your products, behind the scenes, etc.
Look at your page! What are the features you haven’t utilized yet?
6. Include User-Generated Content
What is User Generated Content? Basically it is any type of content-videos, texts, images created by users-in this case your followers or customers.
Brands use such type of content to skyrocket their marketing efforts. For example, an Influencer may put up a story of how a follower commented on one of their posts.
Why should you do it too?
First, it shows social proof. People are more likely to believe a first-hand experience of how a particular product helped someone. It will reduce concerns that a person may have regarding your product.
Second, it will save you a lot of time and money. Imagine the amount of time and money businesses spend on shooting an AD. Here, you are getting free content ready to be posted.
Now, how to go about it?
Ask your customers to share their experiences of using your product or service in the form of a video or photo. Post it in your feed. Or ask them to post your content on their profiles so that more of their followers can know about you.
To promote this type of content, incentivize your followers through giveaways and contests.
You can even collaborate with an Influencer.
7. Collaborate with Influencers
Lastly, another tactic you can use is to collaborate with Influencers in your niche.
Brands collaborate with them, who promote their products on social media channels. This is known as Influencer Marketing.
49% of customers depend on recommendations from Influencers. 74% of people trust social media platforms as a guide for their purchases.
Celebrities take huge sums of money for such collaborations. But if you do not have that much money to spend you can collaborate with micro or local Influencers.
Also, when looking for Influencers it is not necessary to team up with only those who have millions of followers. Often people who have 10k or 30k followers have a deeper connection with their audience. So, don’t be misled by numbers.
As promised, I have curated a list of 10 Fashion Influencers you can check out. I have tried to create a list containing people from different countries.
- Alexa Chung (3.9 M followers)
- Negin Mirsalehi (5.9 M followers)
- Sejal Kumar (758 K followers)
- Ahmed El Sayed (165 K followers)
- Ashley ( 1.2 M followers)
- Camila Coelho (8.7 M followers)
- .Mariano Di Vaio (6 M followers)
- Afua Rida (124 K followers)
- Chiara Ferragni (19.7 M followers)
- Jenn Im (1.7 M followers)
fashion influencer -DepositPhotos
