Aspirational Nature of Fashion Brands

Fashion has become an integral part of our lifestyle, and it is considered a reflection of who we are. Therefore, many of us are curious to learn about the latest fashion trends and unique ways to carry them. Fashion and luxury brands thrive on this aspiration. 

What influencers do is give a relatable image to this aspiration. They know what the audience wants, and they make their audiences feel like insiders by showing how ultrafast or high-end brands are now approachable. 

By generating the need for the product, and engaging followers with their picture-perfect stories, influencers create curiosity to buy products. 
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Influencer Marketing Role in Driving the Aspiration 

Several data across countries show that consumers trust personal recommendations before any purchase. Influencers allow people to see the product in the demonstration and feel connected to it. But what attracts your customers to fashion influencers? 

1. Connection with the followers by being more active on social media.

2. Regular interaction to make a loyal fanbase.

3. Easily relatable compared to celebrities. 
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As influencers closely connect to the target audience, they have the potential to build a brand's credibility with their nuanced and authentic storytelling. Their posts are like an advertisement that creates awareness and drives interest and desire to buy a product — small B2C brands benefit as they don't have to spend too much money advertising their products. 

Social media talents take conversations to a much larger audience with their candidness, persuasiveness, and targeted approach. Influencers can easily demonstrate the quality of your products to their fan base. 

If a brand establishes a long-term relationship with influencers, it can build trustworthy relations with its customers. In return, you get new customers too to generate sales and conversions. 

Also, brands can know what consumers feel about their products by analysing the sentiment of the stories posted by influencers. These analyses give insights into customer behaviour and allow you to tweak the campaign at the right moment. 
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Benefits of Influencer Marketing for Fashion Brands 

A perfect influencer has the expertise, relatability and high engagement rate with the followers base. Only those who are successful in doing that help brands -
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1. Build Credibility: Influencers talk about the product to make it look and sound remarkable. Their ability to highlight the uniqueness builds genuine brand credibility.   
 

2. Reach Targeted Communities: When an influencer's follower base overlaps with a brand's market segment, it  becomes easy for a brand to reach the targeted fashion communities who like to talk about the latest fad.
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‍3. Create Brand Awareness Among High Intent Audience: Influencers prompt their audience to think about the product endorsed in their stories. Audiences with high intent to purchase a product are likely to gain more brand awareness before shelling out the money. 
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Optimising Influencer Marketing to achieve desired benefits 

Influencer marketing for fashion brands can be optimised by working on critical aspects before jumping on the bandwagon. It includes -  
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1. Spotting the right influencers: Finding the influencers in your niche takes you closer to the targeted potential customers. Manually doing Google and social media search can be exhausting. Search from the network of content creators available with the fashion influencer marketing agency or use an influencer marketing platform like affable.ai after defining objectives. 
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2. Opt for Micro-influencers: According to studies, influencers with followers of 10,000 -100,000 have a higher engagement rate. They might not have a vast number of followers but a loyal audience base overlapping with your targeted and potential customers who like to follow fashion. 
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3. Focus on visual storytelling: Gone are the days when blogging was the only way to talk about the latest fashion trends. Social media has accentuated storytelling. Since fashion attracts many of us with visuals, look for content creatorswho have credibility and expertise.
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4. Using the right social media channel: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest are popular social media platforms for influencer marketing in the fashion industry. Instagram has emerged as a powerful platform for promoting fashion brands. Tracking a consumer's journey revolving around these platforms has become quite challenging. But if you know the right platform to run influencer marketing for fashion brands, you can get the expected results. 
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Top 10 Fashion Influencers to follow: 
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1. Cole Sprouse (Instagram - 35.9 million followers)
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Recognised as a style icon, Cole Sprouse is an actor and photographer known for his roles in Riverdale. Data shows that almost 83% of his follower base is above 21 years, and his engagement rate is nearly 5.46%. His estimated reach is over 7.20 million, and his estimated impressions are 10.80 million. His audience interests range from clothing to fashion, live events, exercise and fitness, hair, music, entertainment, beauty and sports. 

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2. Pretty Pictures Girl (Instagram - 951k followers)
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The Instagram account has almost 94% branded content and 6% non-branded content. The audience Interest distribution varies across beauty, travel, arts, music, food, photography, footwear and live events, with an engagement rate of almost 0.06%.  

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3. Adrianna (Instagram - 365k followers)
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Adrianna Christina has worked in influencer marketing campaigns for fashion brands like Alo Yoga, Camila Coelho Collection, Saint Laurent, Shein, Benefit Cosmetics and other fashion and lifestyle brands. She has an engagement rate of almost 1.6%, with most of the audience interest distribution spread across travel, exercise and fitness, photography and hair care. 

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4. Robin Francis(Instagram - 764k followers)
 

Robin Francis is a UK-based fashion influencer. Almost 92% of her follower base comprises an audience above 21 years, and her engagement rate is nearly 4.21%. Most of her followers are interested in content related to clothing, travel, footwear, photography, music and leisure. 

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5. Lillie Lexie(Instagram -543k followers)
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Lillie Lexie is a family, fashion and lifestyle enthusiast. She has an almost 69% female audience interested in travel, clothing and beauty. Lexie has done product endorsements for big brands such as Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Ray-Ban, Prada, Chanel, Zara, Fendi, Ralph Lauren, Chloe, etc. Almost 79% of her content in the last three months has been branded, while 21% is non-branded. 

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7. Karen Wazen Bakhazi (Instagram - 7.4 million followers)
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Bakhazi has worked with brands like Dior, Valentino, Prada, Roberto Cavalli, Pantene, Fendi, and Breitling and has an engagement rate of almost 1.96%. She has posted 62% branded content and 38% non-branded content in the last three months, and her engagement with followers has grown from 2018 onwards. 

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7. Alexa Chung (Instagram - 5 million followers)
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Alexa Chung is a fashion and accessory, lifestyle and food and beverages influencer. More than 87% of her audience is above 21 years old, interested in travel, exercise and fitness, live events, sports and beauty. Her engagement rate is almost 0.63% and has an estimated reach of 1.02 million. She has endorsed products for Chanel, Extreme Cashmere, BMW, British Fashion Council and many more.  

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8. Leonie Hanne (Instagram - 4.2 million followers) 
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Leonie Hanne is a UK-based influencer famous in the European region. She has endorsed products for Revolve, Luxury Promise, Jimmy Choo, Harve Leger, Superdry, Fendi and many more among her audience, which comprises almost 70% females. She has an engagement rate of 1.83% and an estimated reach of 857.53k. Most of her audience base has an interest in beauty. 

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9. Adam Gallagher (Instagram -1.8 million followers)
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Adam Gallagher is a fashion and lifestyle influencer from Latvia in northern Europe. Almost 60% of followers are males, spread across South East Asia and the European region. He has worked for Calvin Klein, Vintage, Prada, Macy's, Converse, Versace, Ralph Lauren, Paul Smith and many more, with an average engagement rate of 0.79% and an estimated reach of 361.42k. 

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10. Blair Eadie (Instagram - 1.9 million followers)
 

A fashion and lifestyle influencer from the USA, Blair Eadie has an audience base in the American and European regions. Her list of endorsed products ranges from ShopStyle Collective to Ann Taylor, Tamara Mellon, Mark Cross, H&M, Zara, and Linda Farrow. Her audience's interest spread across hair care, beauty, leisure and footwear. 
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To Sum Up 

Fashion brands have evolved from hiring celebrities to bloggers to generate authentic content around their clothing range or beauty products. Influencer marketing in the fashion industry has unleashed the power of word of mouth, helping brands create higher ROI successfully. 

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