Influencer Session with Yasmin Dan

Socially Powerful interviewed YouTuber and fashionista Yasmin Dan (@yasmindan) who has been passionate about dance and fashion since childhood. Yasmin creates content that improves her dance performances with outfits that complement her choreography. She prefers YouTube for building a community, while Instagram’s features help her connect with her audience through Stories. Yasmin focuses on creating authentic content, and she collaborates with brands that align with her values. She advocates for sustainability in the fashion industry and plans to start her own business and mentor up-and-coming creators in the next five years.

Yasmin Dan @yasmindan

We caught up with YouTuber and fashionista, Yasmin, or as she’s better know @yasmindan on Instagram, to talk all things dance, digital media, and dreaming big! If you want to know more about Yasmin’s rise to social media stardom, then keep reading!

When did your love for fashion and dance start? Do you find the two overlap often?

I started dancing when I was 2 years old and can’t ever remember a time when dance wasn’t in my life – I’ve always loved it! I’ve also always loved fashion! Over the years I’ve always found myself experimenting with styles and enjoying putting outfits together. I’m a firm believer that you feel your best when you look your best and that ties in with the next point.

For me, fashion and dance go hand in hand. Dance is all about expression and a way to increase that expression is by what you wear! Whenever I film a dance video I’m always thinking about what to wear and what will accentuate the message of the song and choreography.

Even when I go to dance class I always like to put an outfit together that I know I’m going to feel confident in because it will help me to perform a lot better.

How has the rise in fashion influencers on social media impacted your content?

It has definitely pushed me to create more fashion content and be more experimental with my style! Fashion is all about having fun and it’s so nice to see so many people creating more fashion content.

What is your main goal for creating content?

My main goal is always to be individual with my content. I try as much as possible to just create what I want to create, as I feel that really translates into the content. I’m a firm believer that you should always love what you’re putting out so I hope this comes across with the content I create.

Which platforms do you predominantly use? Which do you prefer for posting, and for community building?

My favourite platform has and always will be YouTube. I’ve spent so much time creating and building an audience on that platform that I just feel like it will always have a special place in my heart. I do also love posting on Instagram and I love the features Instagram has that make it easy to quickly communicate with your audience i.e.. Stories.

How does community engagement vary on your chosen platforms?

It honestly varies. At the moment, I definitely feel like I have really strong community engagement on Instagram and I’ve really managed to cultivate a like minded community of others who love fashion! My community on YouTube is more dance focused, but my reach on YouTube has definitely fluctuated over the years.

What is your favourite type of content to create, and which works best for your audience? Is there a juxtaposition?

My favourite content to create for YouTube right now are Shorts! I love how fun and easy they are to create and I’m also able to share more relaxed dance footage from classes.

For Instagram my favourite content to create are still images. I’m not the biggest fan of Reels – I think where I’ve always created video content for YouTube and image content for Instagram I’m still trying to figure out that sweet spot for differentiating my platforms and catering to my audiences.

In your own words and experience, how would you define “influencer marketing”?

I’d define influencer marketing as using an influential individual on social media to reach an engaged audience and ultimately increase brand awareness.

Why do you think influencer marketing is so powerful in today’s society?

Traditional media no longer holds the weight that it once did. I actually studied business studies at university and wrote my dissertation back in 2014 on why businesses needed social media and influencers and to see the transformation of the industry over the past 10 years has been crazy.

Even then I could see the world shifting to being online and now it’s clear that we are all consuming digital media way more than traditional media. It’s so valuable to have a following as you’re able to offer brands reach and exposure which they otherwise wouldn’t get.

Do you have experience working with brands? How do you decide which brands you would like to work with?

I have been lucky enough to work with some great brands that I love. My thought process when briefs come in is “how can I  integrate this into my content authentically?”. Authenticity is really important to me so if I feel like I can’t create authentic content with a brand then I wouldn’t work with them.

Based on your experience, what is one thing you would advocate to change about the fashion industry?

Being wasteful. I’m definitely guilty of wearing things once so I try to recycle as much as I can but I’m really happy to be seeing a lot more hiring options available as trends evolve so quickly!

How do you balance your online and offline lives?

I try to keep my personal life as offline as possible. I don’t really show my family or my 9-5 work life and I only show limited parts of my relationship. This helps me to keep the balance between the two. I really enjoy creating content so even though I spend a lot of time doing it, it never really feels like work!

Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

Still creating content hopefully! I also hope to have started my own business and I’d love to be able to coach up-and-coming creators on how to navigate the ever-changing industry.

What is a piece of advice you would give to your younger self when first starting out as a fashion influencer?

Just have fun with it and don’t be afraid to stand out!