Fashion Influencer Marketing in 2024

Let’s embark on a style revolution and delve into the dynamic realm of fashion influencer marketing, where trends meet influence to redefine the very fabric of style.”

#fashion is one of the most popular hashtags on Instagram, with over 1 billion posts.

Consumers are no longer reliant on magazines to tell them what’s in style this season. It’s all about social media influence: what products are celebrities wearing this season? What are the influencers on your Instagram feed for this month?

The stats also paint a similar picture – a significant proportion – 49% of consumers are known to make purchase decisions on product recommendations from influencers. 

So, if you’re wondering if influencer marketing for fashion can help you launch your brand, the answer is undoubted YES.

With tips and examples from top brands online, this guide will show you step-by-step how to begin fashion influencer marketing.

Contents of this post are as follows:

• What is Fashion Influencer Marketing?
• Why Leverage Fashion Social Media Influencers?
• Top Fashion Trends You Should Be Aware Of
• 9 Effective Strategies for Working with Social Media Fashion Influencers
• Some Inspirational Fashion Influencer Campaigns
• Some Interesting Fashion Influencer Marketing Facts

What is Fashion Influencer Marketing?

According to a Fashion and Beauty Monitor report, 57 percent of fashion companies use influencer marketing in their strategies, and 21 percent intend to do so if they haven’t already.

Fashion influencer marketing is the practice of marketing your products and services by collaborating with individuals who have influence over a group of followers on social media.

So what is a fashion influencer? A fashion influencer has devoted fan bases – people who value their opinions and tastes or who enjoy following their lifestyle. As a result, they influence what their followers buy and can have a direct impact on their followers’ purchasing decisions.

Partnering up with these influencers can provide your brand with high-quality content, trusted recommendations, and new customer awareness. 

Why Leverage Fashion Social Media Influencers?

Before we get into how to create an effective influencer marketing strategy, let’s look at how your brand can benefit from working with influencers. 

– Increase your reach:

Working with influencers allows you to reach their pre-existing followers. You can quickly and easily connect with your target audience by identifying the right influencers.

Research shows you’re better off reaching millennials on Facebook when it comes to social media. Gen-Zers, on the other hand, prefer Snapchat. Moreover, Gen Zers keep current with an average of seven social media profiles each and they spend longer scrolling through the likes of Instagram and Twitter than any other generation before them.

– Cost-Effective: 

Influencer marketing can be a low-cost method of increasing conversions.

As per Bloglovin’s study, a large proportion – 84% of micro-influencers charge less than $250 per branded post. Maybe that’s why 17% of businesses now spend more than half of their marketing budget on working with content creators.

– Increase Brand Awareness: 

You can increase brand and product awareness by collaborating with an influencer. Out of 81% of marketers who use influencer content, 51% said it outperforms brand-created content.

– Improve Customer Trust: 

Customers are more likely to trust your brand’s messaging if it comes from an influencer they already know and trust.

You should know that 92% of consumers trust a recommendation from a person they know than from an advertisement. In fact, 8 out of 10 customers purchased something after seeing the product used by an influencer.

– Authenticity:

86 percent of consumers say that authenticity is one of the most crucial things for a brand to have. Influencers can tell your brand’s story for you, increasing transparency.

Top 3 Fashion Trends You Should Be Aware Of:

To develop an effective influencer marketing strategy, it is critical to stay current on the biggest and most recent trends sweeping the fashion industry.

1. Sustainability

Sustainability has received a lot of attention in recent years. Several influencers have stepped forward to promote sustainable fashion practices by leveraging their reach, engagement, and consumer influence. As a result, they have a very specific audience that is passionate about the cause.

If your company shares the same values as these influencers, you might want to consider collaborating with them. Avoid creating misleading campaigns and products that claim to support the sustainability narrative.

Fashion social media influencer Kathleen( @consciousnchic) is a great example. She frequently partners with eco-friendly brands to promote their products and speaks about ethical fashion and environmental sustainability.

2. Luxury brands

Luxury brands have been hesitant to enter the influencer marketing arena. High-end brands were concerned that giving influencers creative control would jeopardize their exclusivity and integrity.

However, with mid-tier fashion influencers allowing luxury brands to become more approachable and consumer-friendly, things are quickly changing.

Luxury fashion labels are now collaborating with upscale/ luxury influencers and celebrities to help spread the word to the right audiences. 66%+ of luxury brands are actively using influencer marketing to promote their brand, but 46% say that the program is less than a year old. 

3. Diversity and Inclusion

In recent years, many brands have placed a stronger emphasis on diversity and representation. It is unsurprising to see this trend extend into clothing influencer marketing. 

Diversity in the context of fashion influencer campaigns refers to the inclusion of people of various races, genders, body types, sexual orientations, generations, religious backgrounds, and educational levels. 

It’s also about collaborating with content creators who can offer different perspectives. For example:

Forever 21 collaborated with and featured three black creators, Ashley Sky Walker, Henry R. Jones, and Stormy Nesbit, in 2021 to launch its first-ever Black History Month-inspired line. The campaign was also Forever 21’s first large-scale omnichannel campaign.

9 Effective Strategies for Working with Social Media Fashion Influencers

An influencer program, like any other marketing strategy or campaign, requires careful planning and execution. Here are 9 strategies for getting influencer marketing right: 

1. Work with Micro-influencers

When it comes to an influencer’s following, size isn’t always important. In fact, the higher an influencer’s follower count, the lower their engagement rate is likely to be. Instead, you need to look for influencers who are aligned with your brand and have a high level of engagement.

Micro-influencers, as opposed to celebrity influencers, are ordinary people with specific interests or niches who are enthusiastic about creating content and promoting products they believe in. As per research, micro-influencers achieved 22.2 times more conversations than average consumers when they recommended products.

The Forever 21 Influencer Campaign shares photos of micro-influencers wearing their favorite outfits on different social channels with the hashtags #F21xMe. Forever 21 even sends out an apparel budget to influencers to encourage collaborations.

2. Utilize the Potential of User-Generated Content

Your customers are your brand’s most credible influencers.

According to studies, 63% of consumers are annoyed by generic brand ads. On the other hand, 70% of consumers value peer recommendations and reviews over professionally written content.

That’s why you should incorporate user-generated content(UGC) into your fashion brand marketing efforts to win consumer trust. Influencers who post about your brand and encourage others to do the same through user-generated content. 

Aerie is a brand that excels at this. #AerieREAL is a user-generated content (UGC) campaign launched by Aerie to promote body positivity and inclusion on their website and social media.

But collecting UGC is something that can seem tough to you.

Nevertheless, a good influencer agency can help you turn your customers into influencers and collect authentic user-generated content.

3. Promo Codes and Referral Links

Another effective strategy is to create a promo code or referral link for each influencer you work with that they can share with their followers. People enjoy special offers, and promotional codes combined with a discount can take advantage of this.

How does this work?

The influencer promotes your brand on your preferred channel and drops a promo code or referral link that is unique to their name, encouraging their followers to use this coupon code and purchase products from your website. 

Here’s an example from micro-influencer @abiwebb_xx promoting her influencer code with fashion brand Nakdfashion:

Using promo codes/referral links you’ll also be able to track how much revenue each influencer generates.

4. Use Branded Hashtags

With over 25 million businesses promoting their services and products on Instagram, it can be difficult for your influencer campaigns to stand out. And using branded hashtags can give your influencer campaigns a much better chance of success. 

This strategy can be effective in helping new audiences recognize your brand, whether your influencers are launching a new product or posting about an existing one. There’s also the added benefit of creating a community centered on your brand or business.

A branded hashtag should be unique to your brand, such as #sperrystyle or #F21xMe. Here’s an example from @mysamsonite and influencer @iamgadriana:

The ability to track branded hashtags and post insights also provides valuable information that can be used to improve your influencer marketing strategy.

5. Social Media Takeovers

Allow an Influencer to take control of your brand’s social media accounts.

Social media takeovers are an excellent way for new brands to gain exposure. Aside from being extremely entertaining, social media takeovers have several advantages:

• Increased reach: When a fashion influencer takes over your profile, they introduce your brand to their followers. Both your brand and the influencers are introduced to each other’s audiences, increasing visibility and giving you access to a new audience.
• Exciting content: A takeover creates entertaining content that not only grabs attention but also reflects your brand’s personality.

• Partnering with an influencer for a social media takeover instantly increases relatability and improves trust with your followers. 

• Increased engagement: When the right influencer takes over your brand on social media, the content that is created is unique and different, which often leads to increased engagement for your brand.

Invite influencers who are passionate about your brand and its mission, and allow them to creatively display their unique lifestyles.

6. Giveaways and Contests

Running a contest or giveaway in collaboration with a fashion influencer is an excellent way to reap the benefits of influencer marketing. The primary advantage of holding a sponsored contest is that it allows you to engage a new audience in a fun and interesting way.

A co-hosted contest or giveaway with influencers isn’t the only way to run your campaign. You can simply use influencers to spread the word about your contest or giveaway.

Here’s how the @bambiboutique Instagram account went from 0 to 150,000 followers in a week by teaming up with three influencers to host a Tag To Win giveaway on their behalf:

Pro tip– Start hosting multi-network giveaways. Statistics show that 55.82% of brands run simultaneous giveaways on multiple social networks to keep all the brand’s communities happy

7. Provide Call-to-action (CTA)

Consider the following scenario. You have a brick-and-mortar shop with a display window overlooking a busy street. All of the products are beautifully arranged and you did an excellent job of highlighting your products in the most creative way possible.

While your store may bring in a lot of new eyes, people still pass by without stopping to shop. Instagram operates in the same manner, unless you provide a direct opportunity for people to shop, they will not.

You can either create a CTA (Call-To-Action) for your influencers by including a clickable link that will direct their followers to your website or make use of Instagram Shopping features. 

8. Behind-the-Scenes Tour

Another clever strategy for reaching out to an influencer’s audience is to provide a more personal connection than other sponsored content. You can accomplish this by sharing behind-the-scenes looks at your brand and influencer collaborations, as well as posting stories and short videos that would not otherwise fit in the feed.

As per statistics, Brands post an average of 2.5 Stories per week. And you might be surprised to know that brand stories have an 85% completion rate. And do you know Instagram video ads make up over half the advertisements that are on Instagram? In fact, 65% of Instagram impression ads are video content.

Influencer interviews, Q&As, or podcasts are another excellent engagement strategy. Interviews can provide the audience with a glimpse into the influencer’s personality as well as their lifestyle. This allows followers to learn more about your influencers and the processes they use. The last thing you want is for your fashion marketing campaigns to appear impersonal and uninteresting.

9. Host Special Events

Fashion brands frequently organize events to promote their products and raise brand awareness, which garners a lot of media attention. To boost your marketing efforts, you can collaborate with influencers to provide additional social media coverage to your events. Events can also be a cost-effective way to engage a large number of influencers at once.

Some Inspirational Fashion Marketing Campaigns Examples:

Let’s take a look at some of these strategies in action, with examples of brands that have had great success by collaborating with influencers.

– Revolve:

Revolve is a multi-brand fashion retailer that primarily caters to millennials. Revolve started off by sending free clothes to fashion bloggers as a form of promotion. These days, instead of paying influencers to post, Revolve creates experiences and opportunities for them to create content. 

During these events, Revolve’s influencers post twice a day using pre-designated hashtags to promote the brand. Revolve’s influencers go through a vetting process that looks for platform diversity, high-quality visual content, and a history of engagement with followers.

In addition, they host the renowned annual #RevolveFestival at Coachella. In the weeks leading up to this event, Revolve typically generates 30% of total annual revenue.

– Fashion Nova

Fashion Nova is a fashion brand that has grown in popularity over the years as a result of influencer marketing. No one can discuss the retail brand’s success without mentioning how influencers played a significant role in it.

Fashion Nova began by utilizing micro-influencers to fuel its Instagram growth, which quickly became the brand’s most popular marketing channel. Now, Fashion Nova has paid celebrities such as Cardi B, Kylie Jenner, and others to promote their influencer clothing brand.

Customers who wear one of their products and tag others on Instagram are recognized as #NovaStars or #NovaBabes. Fashion Nova likes and comments on each post, and occasionally reposts the image on its account, turning each potential customer into a brand advocate. 

– Forever 21

Another popular fashion brand, Forever 21, uses micro and nano influencers to promote the brand by sharing eye-catching posts with branded hashtags. The brand also encourages users to use the hashtags #F21xMe when posting photos of their favorite outfits on social media. 

Unlike most fashion social media campaigns, this one places the customer at the center of the brand’s image. If there’s one thing to take away from Forever 21, it’s their ability to leverage true organic promotion.

– Daniel Wellington

Daniel Wellington’s iconic “Nato” strap watches have now become a fashion staple thanks to a strategic influencer marketing campaign.

How did they rack up over 4.9 million Instagram followers? By gifting DW watches to influencers. 

Their strategy was simple: The DW team distributed watch samples to a select group of micro-influencers. They could keep the Daniel Wellington watch for free if they posted a photo of themselves promoting the brand.

Their daily #DWPickoftheDay contest encourages influencers to create creative content in exchange for the chance to be reposted on Daniel Wellington’s official account.

Also, learn some interesting facts about fashion influencer marketing in the upcoming section.

Some Interesting Fashion Influencer Marketing Facts

1. eBay wants to attract fashion bloggers and people aged 18 to 37 who spend about 6 to 19 hours weekly on social media.
2. Fashion bloggers often choose Facebook due to its capture of 14.6% of Internet users’ time, a significantly higher percentage compared to the combined 2% of all other social networking sites.
3. In today’s age, content is abundant. American adults devote over 11 hours—almost half of their day—to engaging with media, encompassing various topics like fashion, food, and more.
4. According to 2018 Nielson data, adults over 18 spend around 45 minutes daily on social media, mainly through smartphones, making viral brand exposure through celebrities or influencers potentially resulting in significant sales boosts due to immediate access to purchasing channels.
5. Despite the prominence of Google reviews, Nielsen indicates that social media reigns as the primary information source in consumers’ decision-making. Nielsen’s findings reveal that adults dedicate a significant 5.5 hours per week to social media, constituting 36% of their total weekly media consumption.
6. According to a Nielson report, people spend six to seven hours daily on social media, meaning we’re constantly exposed to enticing advertisements from mommy bloggers and home-decor experts due to our extensive phone use.
7. Our online activities shape our real-world actions. For instance, while online sales represent just 7% of the economy, the web influences about 47% of offline sales. Almost half of an American adult’s daily routine involves browsing websites, checking emails, and engaging with social media.

Begin Fashion Influencer Marketing with Happine

Optimize your influencer marketing initiatives with Happine, the platform designed for initiating and managing collaborations with influential content creators. In the dynamic landscape of influencer marketing, the selection of the right platform is pivotal for businesses. Happine stands out among the myriad alternatives, reshaping the way brands engage with influencers and ensuring the success of marketing campaigns.

Key Features

• Extensive Influencer Network: Connect with influencers across diverse niches and industries through our expansive network.
• Advanced Search Filters: Utilize intuitive and powerful filters to precisely select influencers that align with your brand.
• Real-time Performance Analytics: Stay abreast of campaign success and engagement with up-to-the-minute insights.
• Efficient Collaboration Management: Seamlessly handle communication and transparently manage collaborations throughout campaigns.
• Campaign Tracking and ROI Measurement: Evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns and measure return on investment for informed decision-making.

Visit the Website

Conclusion

If you’re new to influencer marketing in the fashion industry, these pointers should help you get started. Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for expanding your reach, improving customer trust, building your audience, and ultimately driving more sales for your products and services. 

Explore a wide-ranging influencer network tailored to specific niches on Happine, allowing you to select influencers that perfectly align with your brand. Furthermore, Happine provides a streamlined experience by enabling you to effortlessly manage every collaboration and track ROI directly within the platform, ensuring a seamless influencer marketing journey.

So what are you waiting for? Click below to know the pricing and create your first campaign now!

Check Pricing