Hi Ingrid! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us and share some of your expertise and experience. You own a communications agency and have helped us with our Social Media Strategy, we learned a ton of new things thanks to your expertise but we also felt so connected because you are a fashionista yourself and love to thrift!
1. By working with us, an online vintage clothes brand, did you notice any differences in what a vintage brand needs in terms of social media practices, compared with other brands, that produce new things?
Here, first of all, thank you so much for reaching out! Working with you is such a nice experience. I think the challenge in social media for vintage brands is the cost of the creative content. Social Media is asking for more and more diversification of content: video, REELS, LIVES, TikTok... And I think it's difficult for a small brand to keep it up in terms of time and cost too. With you, I've become aware of the ROI of each shoot: the products are unique and the production cost of taking photos of each product is only reflected in the price of an item. This is difficult to make profitable.
As an e-commerce business, customers can only see products online or on video, so it's important to stay close to your audience and to show products from different angles...
The final challenge, I'd say, is to remain original and continue to create coherent campaigns without getting too caught up in the infernal loop of commercial content.
2. For you personally what is the beauty of vintage clothes?
REUSING, timelessness, uniqueness.
I think the beauty is to rediscover a piece forgotten by someone else. Vintage also offers the opportunity to buy luxury at a low price. The unique piece makes it all as well.
3. You have experience working for big companies as much as for small ones. What do you think is the biggest difference between the work you can do for a small and a big business?
I might say that is the resources: economic, human, and cost for creative content, advertising… But also the expectation. Of course, the investment in Social Media is higher for a small company than for a big company that discrete social media as an extra tool to reach their customers. For small brands, I think the expectation of ROI is higher and the challenge is different: it’s a strategy of growth.
4. Bloggers, Influencers and Companies complain that Instagram always changes their algorithm so the visibility of the brands fluctuates. Do you also see it as a problem or how do you usually tackle the issue?
It’s an issue of course! Rules are always changing yet in a certain way Social media has become the second machine of “capitalism “: always more and novelties all the time. Moreover to reach your audience, now you need to pay. Statistics speak: the average concentration now is from 6 seconds on social media! It’s crazy when you think about it: How do you keep catching your clients when they are exposed to so much content and new things all the time? How to constantly adapt your branding to new trends? What to adopt? What not? In the end, I got to a point as a professional that we should be a bit more “intuitive”: just post content you like and you enjoy producing. People will feel it! In their last podcast, The 2 co-founder of Nude Project were saying that we have come to a point where it doesn't matter what the format is or the type of content you post as long as it connects with your audience. With A.I. we are going deeper back to this. People will look for FEELINGS and sincerity.
5. As a fan of vintage clothes, where do you think the fashion industry is going to go in the next 5 years in regards to preloved items?
As the previous 5 past years, the vintage market will go bigger! And it’s a good move! There are too many clothes in that word already! You just need to see the landfill of clothes in Africa. It’s frightening! The second-hand market struggles to recycle all the clothes in the world. So for me, the main challenge is educating people. Educate them to be aware and to be more conscious and sensible with what they are wearing.
On the other hand, I also think that the fast fashion industry will have to challenge the sustainable issue not as a strategy of marketing to sell more but as a reality. Many fast fashion brands are starting to rent their clothes for example MANGO RENTING, which means the market is definitely taking a move. So I think it will be positive for the vintage market and on the other hand it will also become challenging because everyone will do vintage in a certain way! It’s about time! In my opinion, the evolution is too slow and still focused on business. Maybe if people were more conscious about buying vintage, the world would dress and feel better ;)
Thank you Ingrid very much for sharing your thoughts!
