If you’ve set your sights on becoming a fashion influencer, you’ve certainly chosen a potentially lucrative profession.
Of all the influencing niches that are there, fashion is the one that compels the highest number of deals and gigs.
Fashion brands are particularly interested in influencers because they know influencers hold the key to convincing consumers in the fashion world.
Unlike in other fields, fashion consumers often look up to their favorite influencers for fashion trends, styles, and ideas.
Just by rocking the products of a new brand, an influencer can send tons of traffic to the store of a newly launched fashion line.
Such is the kind of hold fashion influencers have over their fashionista audiences.
Opportunity for success
As earlier mentioned, fashion brands – both new and old – recognize the significance of influencer marketing in their marketing campaigns. As such, they’re always eager to work with influencers.
However, that doesn’t mean they would settle for less.
They know there are tons of fashion influencers out there. So before they put their money on anyone, they always ensure it is someone that can guarantee results.
So, what do you need to do to make sure you’re that “someone.”
Tips for success for fashion influencers
- Have an enviable portfolio
The first thing brands expect to find on your portfolio is proof of your “influencing power.” That is, how strong an influencer are you?
You can showcase this through the number of subscribers, viewers, followers, and engagements you have on your social media pages.
Engagements, in this case, would represent stuff like number of likes or comments per post, number of positive feedback from fashion recommendations, reviews from people that have been influenced, or any proof that shows that people are feeling you.
If you don’t yet have an enviable portfolio, don’t worry, we have a trick to help you. It’s in tip #2 below.
- Do what the pros are doing to build their portfolio
It normally takes a long time, and lots of effort to build the sort of portfolio fashion brands are looking for.
To jumpstart the process, many influencers take shortcut routes to build their portfolio.
Some of the most common routes include buying promo packages like followers, adopting the follow-me-follow-back strategy, or joining private pod groups.
For example, instead of waiting around to gain thousands of subscribers organically, many of them buy YouTube subscribers from Stormviews.
Same thing for likes, subscribers, viewers, and other important portfolio metrics.
If the pros did it to get to where they are today, why shouldn’t you?
- Join fashion discussion groups
The fashion industry is an ever-dynamic one, which means it’s always changing.
If you want to be successful in it, you can never stand alone. You have to constantly connect with other influencers to stay in the know with the latest trends and happenings in the industry.
Otherwise, you risk becoming stale and out-of-date.
A good way to connect with other influencers is by joining fashion discussion groups and forums.
Thanks to the internet-driven age we’re in, there is no shortage of groups to join. Just by asking a couple of your colleagues, you can find dozens of groups to join.
A very good example of this kinda group is the highly popular Fashion Brand Ambassadors (FBA) group on Facebook. Here, Fashionistas and influencers can swap tips, find job opportunities with brands, and key into new trends and ideas.
- Create a unique content strategy
These days, social media is brimming with attractive people posing in different fashion trends and statement styles.
For fashion influencers to stand out from the crowd, they need a well-defined content creation strategy.
That is, your content needs to take a point of view and communicate it to the world. You can challenge yourself to invent new styles, photograph or video in uncommon locations, or come up with uncommon content ideas.
- Build your CV with free deals
Most brands will ask you to present evidence that you’ve worked with other brands in the past and to show how those brands benefitted from your service.
If you’ve influenced for fashion lines in the past, this shouldn’t be a problem for you, as you can easily point them to companies you’ve worked with before.
But for a newbie fashion influencer who’s just starting their journey, this can present a challenge.
Yes, you have the social media presence and a legit influence on your crowd. But where is the evidence to showcase your expertise? N/A!
Many experts recommend working with a couple of small businesses to build your CV to prevent missing out on future opportunities.
You can start by connecting with local designers, boutiques, and fashion lines offering to don their products for free or for a discount on non-returnable items such as sunglasses.
Any experience garnered from here will reflect on your CV, as well as any successes recorded.
- Collaborate with other influencers
There is nothing wrong with collaborating with colleagues in the industry, provided you share the same sense of fashion style.
Collaborations can come in joint projects, shoutouts, mentions, recommendations, or even commenting on other influencers’ posts.
When you collaborate with other fashion influencers, you expose yourself to their audiences, many of whom may admire your fashion style and may want to follow you.
- Educate your audience
Although people follow you because they like your fashion sense, you can turn this love into respect by offering them something a little bit more valuable like fashion tips, style ideas, trend breaks, and so on.
When you deliver these kinds of content, your audience will view you as an authority in the industry – someone who knows better than the average person.
When you enjoy this kind of perception, it will be easier to influence the fashion decisions of your audience because they trust your recommendations and opinions.
