Show Notes
Are you ready to unlock the secrets to success in the world of fashion design and branding? Look no further than our latest podcast episode, where we delve into the intersection of authenticity, profitability, and the art of storytelling in the fashion industry.
In this episode, we had the pleasure of hosting an expert in fashion design and communications. Throughout the discussion, our guest emphasized the crucial role of storytelling for brands in today’s competitive landscape. They also shed light on the potential of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, particularly for new fashion brands looking to carve out their space in the industry.
One of the standout points from the conversation was the recommendation of leveraging Instagram and TikTok as ideal platforms for new fashion brands. Our guest highlighted TikTok’s accessibility and its ability to reach a broadening demographic, making it an indispensable tool for brands looking to connect with a younger and more diverse audience.
We also explored the potential of Threads, drawing insightful comparisons to Twitter, and discussed the importance of building a strong presence on Instagram. Our guest emphasized the significance of creating an enviable lifestyle on the platform and offered valuable insights into marketing and social media strategy services that can elevate a brand’s online presence.
Staying current with trends and creating compelling content emerged as another key theme. Our guest shared invaluable insights into the impact of TikTok shopping and the strategic value of brand ambassadors. Consistency was highlighted as a driving force that can open doors to ambassador opportunities, demonstrating the importance of maintaining a strong and engaging online presence.
The conversation didn’t stop there. We delved into managing social media intimidation, privacy concerns, and the importance of establishing contact information for effective brand building strategies. Our guest provided actionable advice on navigating these challenges, empowering listeners to confidently navigate the ever-evolving landscape of social media and brand management.
So, whether you’re an aspiring fashion designer, a seasoned brand owner, or simply passionate about the intersection of design and business, this podcast episode is a must-listen. Join us as we uncover the strategies and insights that can propel your brand towards success in the dynamic world of fashion.
Tune in now to gain exclusive access to the expertise and wisdom shared by our esteemed guest, and take the first step towards unlocking the potential of your fashion brand.
Alaya’s instagram:
@alayaautum_Transcript
[00:00:00.000] – Zahiyya
Welcome to the Designers Plants & Coffee podcast, where we discuss how to succeed as a designer while staying true to yourself, finding peace in the process, and making money doing what we love. Subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast. We have our first guest.
[00:00:14.530] – Alaya
Well, first off, thank you all for having me on this show, ladies. I’m super excited to be here. I have a background in fashion design and overall just building communications. I feel like a lot of people don’t know how to tell a story when it comes to their brand. And so that’s where someone like me comes in.
[00:00:31.680] – Naima
So what is the best social media for a fashion brand just starting out?
[00:00:36.790] – Alaya
There’s two, and they’re obvious ones, but the first one, of course, is Instagram. That’s really good for anyone starting out. Tiktok, just because what’s happening now is that people want to see things in a quicker time span without having to feel like I’m sitting there too long. For example, if you go on Instagram, obviously, you get caught and you’re scrolling. Depending on what And your feed is like, you may not see how somebody got from point A to point B right away. You may just see the glory pictures. Instagram tells the story from the perspective of, I’ve already made it. I’m already successful. You’re going to believe whatever I want you to believe via Instagram. Whereas TikTok makes it feel a little more like, oh, this is doable.
[00:01:19.710] – Alaya
You were able to make this in 30 seconds, right? Even though we know that’s not realistic. With TikTok, I can see somebody’s stuff from China or whatever. Next, it has 14,000 views. So I would say TikTok is a great way to start.
[00:01:34.630] – Zahiyya
What do you think is the demographic for TikTok?
[00:01:37.300] – Alaya
Honestly, so starting off, TikTok was really for the younger demographic. But I’ve seen DJs come across a And he has to be in his late ’70s. And he gets on TikTok Live, and he plays all of his old records. And people tune in, and they watch, and they like it, and they listen to it because you just don’t know what everybody’s vice is. So I don’t really think you have to be in a certain age. Now, yes, there’s young stuff on there, but there’s also a good window for you to capture every age group of people on TikTok.
[00:02:12.450] – Zahiyya
What about threads?
[00:02:13.450] – Alaya
I’ve gotten on there enough to to see like, okay, this is just Twitter. I don’t think it’s bad. I actually think it’s genius in a sense, because I’m going to take advantage of my competitor, and then I’m going to name it after something that people constantly live in. You live in your text thread all the time when you’re talking to people or your email thread, like you’re going through certain things. And now that on a political standpoint, Twitter is in the hole with Elon Musk, it’s like, oh, I can take advantage of this and go a little further.
[00:02:46.930] – Alaya
So I feel like threads is still an up and coming early phase where people are like, do I want to leave Twitter? Do I want to go to threads? So you can still reach a good target on threads because people are actively on it. But it’s like, will it ever be Twitter? So that’s why I was saying Instagram is a little harder. It’s like goals. People are like, oh, these are my relationship goals. That’s my dressing goals, my status. She has the career I want. He drives the car I want. And so when you’re trying to capture people on Instagram, it’s not like a facade. You need to be able to build yourself and present yourself in a lifestyle that people are going to envy enough to where they want to follow follow you to where they can find a way to replicate exactly what it is that you’re doing.
[00:03:34.270] – Zahiyya
What does your company do?
[00:03:35.510] – Alaya
I will help build out marketing plans for your business and social media strategies to boost your customers, emails, Instagram, social media, and just building up your engagement because that’s really what I’m about.
[00:03:50.160] – Naima
Do you do any other things with branding?
[00:03:52.610] – Alaya
I’m also a graphic designer. I enjoy the idea of helping you curate what your brand identity is because I feel like a lot of people don’t know how to identify themselves, let alone identify their brand. They’ll try to sell you into something, but they’re like, Hey, this isn’t sticking with my customers. And it’s like, Well, your customers don’t know how to identify you, so they’re not going to stick around long enough. So help me figure that out. You got to constantly be able to keep up the trends. I hate being trendy, but at the same time, when it comes to social engagement, you have to be trendy. For example, I may see a picture someone and be like, I don’t understand why this was worth 250,000 likes. But then I realized, okay, you know what? Her background is esthetically pleasing. This looks really good. Maybe she has on a new designer brand or that’s super trendy The It Girls like this.
[00:04:47.350] – Alaya
She’s capturing a certain target audience of people that are like, Oh, I like those bags. I like the shoes. I could see myself dressing like this or having lunch in a cafe like that. And I just think that’s one of the things people don’t really know how to impact their audience. It’s like, you have to find a way to make people feel like I’m missing out.
[00:05:09.720] – LaTisha
Do you have any comments on the TikTok shopping with a lot of influencers and small businesses, independent designers, really getting a lot of exposure and blowing up through the TikTok shopping? Yeah.
[00:05:23.310] – Alaya
So I definitely feel like the TikTok shop is super competitive because it can be It can become extremely oversaturated. It can become extremely oversaturated, and it can get old quick, but at the same time, it doesn’t. I know you all have seen that book that’s just floating around TikTok, and it’s like, oh, find a way to be a better version of yourself. And I actually saw a video where a girl posted, and she was like, oh, my gosh, I’m tired of seeing this video. Please stop targeting me. So I started thinking the same thing. I’m like, why do I keep seeing this video? I’m not going to buy it. And then I got in the with my girlfriend, and she had the book. It was that simple. I do think that TikTok shop is a great way to get your products out there or your services out there. But it’s all about having a brand ambassador, because really and truly, regardless of what’s on a TikTok shop, I’m not going to the TikTok shop until I see someone using the product, until I’ve gotten to the point where I’m so tired of seeing it that I’m going to buy it.
[00:06:28.090] – Zahiyya
Or how does one become a brand ambassador. If you are a brand, how do you reach out to one?
[00:06:33.840] – Alaya
Anybody can be a brand ambassador. You got a couple posts, and I say that to say you don’t have to have 100,000 followers. You just have to have consistency. You just need to be consistent with what you do. And if you want to, again, give a façade that you’re a brand ambassador, and I should say more so like, fake it till you make it, it’s just about your consistency. So if I’m actively posting with different products, like, Oh, here’s a cup. This glass, it’s just perfect with everything that I do. People will start wanting to send you their products because they’re like, Oh, this person actively posts, and that’s one less thing that the company has to do. Now, if you are a brand that is looking for brand ambassadors, you’ll be surprised. A lot of people are really open to doing stuff like that because the engagement also keeps their business going. They’re looking for people to reach out to them and to say, Hey, I have a new product. Can you please test this out? One of my girlfriends, she’s a social media influencer. When she first started out, she would just buy trendy clothes that she really liked.
[00:07:50.900] – Alaya
And her thing was that she wanted to become known for her streetwear. That’s what she wanted. And so she would buy trendy pieces, and then she would take time out of her day and schedule like, Hey, okay, I have to go take five pictures. I need to take pictures in my next three looks and get them going and then have a rotation in which I post everything. And so that builds up her engagement and also started to curate a platform for people to say, Hey, every time I go here, she has on the latest sneakers, she has on the latest pants. I like the way she put this on. I just bought this, but I don’t really know how to go about it. And so a brand ended up reaching out to her. Well, they reached out to her, but they reached out to her and they were like, Hey, we really like your style. And we think our customers would like to see you in our product. Can you wear this? And obviously, she had her requirements. From the brand’s point, you want to make sure that when you’re reaching out, you give them requirements like, Hey, if I send you a product, I need this to be posted within the next two weeks.
[00:08:54.580] – Alaya
Or what’s your turnaround time? Because people will… They won’t do it. People will get busy or You’ll be looking like, Hey, where’s my stuff? And so once you give them a proper timeline, what it is that you want them to wear or what service you want them to boost, then they’ll respond back to you. Sometimes, I’m not going to lie, a lot of people will do it for free because they get the engagement. Then there are other people that they have a really high following. But obviously, they’ll probably ask for some type of currency, some type of paid promotion or things like that.
[00:09:30.030] – Zahiyya
What made you go into this opposed to straight up fashion?
[00:09:34.000] – Alaya
I love clothes, I love fashion, but I’m also an artist. And I wanted to find a way to be able to say, Hey, I appreciate art in every form, not just clothes, not just mixed media, every single form. And I couldn’t pick. I found myself working in a bunch of different fields in the fashion industry, just testing the water, seeing what it was that I liked, what I didn’t like. I’ve worked on some I’ve done some commercials, like behind the scene, wardrobe. Everything that I was able to do, I was like, Okay, this was great, but I don’t do that all the time. And then I finally found myself in a place where I like to engage enough with the customer on a level where I don’t have to worry about if these pants fit you or not, because honestly, that’s not my business. So really just taking time out to understand what I like and what I don’t like and stop trying to force myself to believe I like doing this when really I like doing it for me in that area.
[00:10:33.230] – Zahiyya
What would you consider yourself, introvert or extrovert?
[00:10:35.450] – Alaya
Oh, I’m an extrovert.
[00:10:36.780] – Zahiyya
If you were introverted, how would you get past wanting to talk to people?
[00:10:40.910] – Alaya
That is a thing, though. That is a real thing. And especially now, there are so many people, especially in the black community, that suffer from anxiety or just overall low self-esteem and confidence or not even wanted to truly engage. But I do think it comes back to the idea of identifying yourself. Well, who you are on social media does not have to necessarily be all of you. What really sets introverts apart is that if you have a niche, it won’t matter about the engagement because you’ll just do it because you’re passionate and you like it. And so you’re not looking for people to like it. I’m not looking for you to come and give me 100 hearts on this, because what I will say is overall is after a while, social media can be super intimidating. It can be Very intimidating. And people start feeling like, Hey, I don’t want to do this anymore. This one brand that I follow, the young lady, she posts. She goes in, she posts her pictures, and she’s like, You would think she wasn’t private, but on the inside, she’s super private. And she literally says, You guys, I post, and I immediately get off of social media when I post it.
[00:11:54.900] – Alaya
I don’t post and stick around and see who’s going to engage with me. I post or I take cyber breaks where it’s like, I may have things already in place, and then I know, okay, I need to take a cyber break for the next 15 days or so. And that’s just how you keep that balance with yourself, finding a way where it works for you, but it’s not the typical what everybody else does.
[00:12:19.030] – Zahiyya
Where can people find you online?
[00:12:20.740] – Alaya
My social media is @alayaautumn_. You can follow me on there. My email address for my company is Intimate Designs For You @ gmail dot com. If you email me, I’ll be more than happy to help build your brand and storytelling and engagement and boost some revenue for your pocket.
[00:12:37.800] – LaTisha
That’s all for now. Until next time, I’m LaTisha Winston of Keeping You in Stitches, along with Naima Dozier of Fearless Threads and Zahiyya of Cover Me Chic and Region Design Lab and Alaya, our social media guru. So please join us next time.
