Fashion Marketing: Choosing The Right Fashion Influencer For Your Brand

As influencer experts we explain what factors fashion brands should be looking out for when hiring a fashion based influencer.

Marketing is difficult. As a professional, the extent to which a customer engages with your content relies heavily upon whether or not they sense sincerity in your message. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of traditional advertising and skeptical as a result.  

This skepticism has caused consumers to rely more heavily on guidance from immediate sources that they inherently trust and that are more directly aligned with their own style and taste. This is often friends, professionals, but more recently and prominently social media influencers.

The fashion world is undoubtedly one of the more influential sectors. Largely due to it’s ability to act in conjunction with many other areas. Technology influencers, gaming influencers, sport influencers are all able to drive interest and engagement for fashion brands in cohesion with their respective industries.

Despite all of this, investing in fashion influencer marketing is a waste of resource should the selection process not be considered, measured and eventually refined to a candidate that has an audience specific to the one you’re striving towards.

All a bit overwhelming? Don’t worry. Here are 4 factors to consider before choosing your influencer:

How relevant?

Before you do anything, you should asses the relevance of the influencer to your brand. How aligned is their offering with yours? What tone do they convey and how is yours similar? For example, if you have a product made from organic recycled cotton, you’re going to want an influencer that endorses sustainable fashion as opposed to someone that regularly wears plastics and expresses no interest in environmentally conscious products.

This step is crucial as it’s the starting block to which the selection process is built upon.

How engaged?

How engaged are their followers? How many are sharing? Commenting? Liking? Returning? A huge following is great but it means very little to brands if those numbers aren’t interacting with content. A good indication of a meaningful relationship is how often the consumer returns to the page after first viewing.

What reach? 

An important factor but often an over emphasised one. The size of an influencer’s following and its relevance to your brand is only relative to the extent that it’s representative of your target market. For example, a fashion blogger endorsing boutique sunglasses is going to drive more meaningful engagement than a gaming influencer endorsing the same product.

It’s also important to note that different social platforms attract different demographics. I.e a fashion influencer boasting a large Instagram following is likely to be a more useful resource to brands than a fashion influencer with the same following on Facebook.

How authentic? 

Authenticity is a key component to a compelling story. It’s also a critical factor in your selection process. Influencers with a smaller ratio of sponsored content tend to be more trusted by consumers and appear far more authentic.

When reviewing an influencers content, you should assume that the viewer understands the concept of influencer marketing and recognises that product reviews are unlikely to be organic conceptions and are more likely commissioned.

The most effective endorsements are those that are woven into a narrative. For example, a video blog documenting your weekend at London fashion week.

With this list you’re now equipped to tackle the fashion influencing market and begin your journey to increased brand relevance.