Content to Stop you Scrolling Mindlessly

The Australian Fashion industry in recent years has voiced their concern for sustainability in the industry as ‘fast fashion’ is seemingly becoming an issue that is desired by many individuals (Mcneill and Moore, 2015). With fashion trends only lasting the course of a season, fast fashion is becoming increasingly prevalent, resulting in an impact on the environment due to wastage (Joy et at, 2015). Sustainable and ethical fashion is becoming increasingly important and in turn, the increase in its awareness from influencers is not growing as fast as it should be.

What are Influencers?

Influencers are individuals who have power to promote and endorse products and brands through their social media sites, to affect audience purchase decisions (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2020). Influencer marketing is where fashion and beauty brands and companies get in contact with influencers to send them products for free in return of social content. There is a strong correlation between the brand, the influencer and the followers as they all work closely to ensure the best exposure for the brand of company.

The main platform used by influencers and the one I will be focusing on most is Instagram. Instagram is a photo and video sharing social media site (Instagram, 2020). In addition, some influencers use YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and blogs.

We all spend so much of our time on social media channels scrolling through masses of content, but what specific content are we actually engaging with? Some of the most important aspects when engaging a consumer are the quality of the content and the relevance of the content as well as it being creative. Throughout my study, I have analysed different content posted by ethical and sustainable influencer vs non ethical and sustainable influencers and logged these findings below:

Ethical Fashion Influencers:

• Social media platforms: Instagram mostly, however, some also use YouTube and Twitter to increase their online presence
• Audience: People who care about where their clothing purchases have been made, as well as influencers who feel like they should take more care into knowing where they are purchasing their clothes from.
• Images: High resolution images and content of high quality. Images are more raw and unfiltered
• Colour: Colours tend to more earthy tones such as greens and browns and light blues
• Perception of content: Ethical influencers are more real in what they post, this could have to do with their personal emotions and opinions in that they believe environmental issues are real and and need to be addressed. These influencers more accurately represent their own real life instead of only posting the ‘good’.
• Brands endorsed: Ethical and sustainable brands, Australian made
• Captions: Conversational, educational and informative
• Hashtags: Hashtags used such as #ecofriendly #sustainable #lowwaste
• Videos: Some videos mixed with photos

Non Ethical Fashion Influencers:

• Social media platforms: Instagram and YouTube quite often also. Other platforms used occasionally
• Audience: Young females generally who are interested in beauty and fashion
• Images: High resolution and of high quality. Most posts are highly edited and filtered, with good makeup, clothing and lighting
• Colour: More of a relaxed, beachy feel. Coastal tones, not many bright colours
• Perception of content: more of a millennial audience, influencers look as though they live an easy, picture perfect life.
• Brands endorsed: Well known companies and high end brands such as Hello Fresh, Oroton and Platypus.
• Captions: Relaxed, use of emojis, OOTD and occasional information
• Hashtags: Little to no hashtags used

Overall I believe that both ethical and non-ethical influencer groups product engaging content to draw followers in, though it is important for influencers and bloggers to maintain an environmentally friendly way of promoting Australian made products, made with sustainable materials. By undertaking this research I was able to understand how fashion influencers actually take ethics and sustainability of their clothing into consideration when purchasing, and as a result communicate this to their followers on social media. Non ethical

References:

Gillin, 2008. ‘New Media, New Influencers and Implications for the Public Relations Profession’. Volume 2 Issue 2. Accessed 2^nd November 2020. Available at: https://media-s3.blogosfere.it/iab/images/NewInfluencer.pdf

L.V Casaló, et al, 2020. ‘Be creative, my friend! Engaging users on Instagram by promoting positive emotions’. Accessed 4^th November 2020. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296320301089