Social media is a game-changer for the fashion industry as the catwalk apparently has taken the backseat when it comes to selling clothes. The faster and more effective way for creations by designers to be known and sell a lot of clothes is to post images of models on social media wearing their masterpieces.
To guide casting agencies which model to hire to showcase their products, D'Marie Archive, an analytics group, developed an app and platform as guide for agencies by placing a valuation on a celebrity-model's influence on social media, reports IBT.
Based on the app's metrics, Kendall Jenner, Cara Delevingne and Miranda Kerr are the most influential and expensive models in the industry today, says Frank Spadafora, founder and CEO of D'Marie and former casting director. The basis of the metrics is the number of likes that photos of those three models got in 2015 on social media sites.
The number of "likes" is linked to the number of their followers on social media, especially in top photo-sharing site Instagram where Kendall has 44 million followers, Cara 23.9 million and Miranda 19.5 million. The three, as well as other top models, benefit from the number of followers by charging as much as $25,000 to $50,000 for a single post on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook wearing a particular brand of apparel or fashion accessory.
The same talent fee is also being charged by other top models such as Gigi Hadid, Behati Prinsloo and Karlie Kloss, says Spadafora. He explains, "If you want to reach a model's audience, you're going to have to pay a hefty additional fee for that."
In turn, these endorsers could earn from $125,000 to $300,000 for a single post on a social media site, he adds. And the relationship works two-way, Spadafora points out. Models need social media presence also to boost their careers, which makes adding hashtags to their posts part of their tasks as influencers.
After Kendall, Cara and Miranda came Irina Shayk with 11.9 million followers and Gigi Hadid with 12.1 million followers, according to D'Marie Archive. The top 5 brands and their respective followers, meanwhile, are Victoria's Secret (61.9M), Forever21 (23.6M), Dolce & Gabbana (20.5M), Gucci (23.4M) and Burberry (26.4M).
For bloggers, the most influential are Chiara Ferragni (6.64M), Tyler Oakley (12.7M), Josh Ostrovsky (8.19M), Jules Sarnana (3.22M) and Adam Gallagher (2.2M).