Social media hits beat model faces
FORGET PERFECT bone structure and an impressive set of measurements. For today’s wouldbe supermodel, there’s a new vital statistic: her social media following.
‘‘ For certain big money jobs, brands stipulate that girls must have at least 10,000 followers,’’ says Paul Hodgson, of Select Model Management. ’’Almost every brief we receive now asks how many followers they have.’’
Partnerships between lifestyle brands and social media stars such as Kendall Jenner ( 25.8 million followers), Cara Delevingne (12.3 million) and Gigi Hadid ( 3.3 million), whereby products are featured on the model’s own account, have more quantifiable reach than billboards or pages in magazines. The bigger the audience, the more valuable the model is as an asset.
‘‘Clients are very savvy – two or three Instagram posts are now part of the contract,’’ Hodgson says.
Last year a shot of Kendall Jenner, a reality TV star and the sister of Kim Kardashian, in Calvin Klein underwear became the most popular picture across Instagram, attracting more than one million likes.
Jenner is now the global ambassador for Estee Lauder, whose president describes her as ‘‘the ultimate Instagirl’’.
Modelling agencies sometimes help those on their books to create social media posts for brands. Wording is often signed off by clients too. But the models with the biggest followings on Instagram tend to curate their own accounts personally. Bookers report that most models are more comfortable with the visual nature of the platform, as opposed to the written format of Twitter. Instagram is believed to target retail demographics more effectively too – most often, teenage girls.
Of the 21 names on Forbes’s model rich list, nine have more than one million Instagram followers. Gisele Bundchen has 5.2 million, Miranda Kerr has 6.1 million and the British model Jourdan Dunn has 1.2 million.
‘‘It’s a dealbreaker,’’ says Sarah Doukas, the scout who discovered Kate Moss in 1988. ‘‘If you have two comparable girls, the one doing social media is going to get the gig. ‘‘ Storm, Doukas’s agency, has a team to coach new models in online etiquette. From next week the agency’s website will also display a live update of each model’s follower count next to the details of their height, eye and hair colour.
Rosie Vogel, Vogue’s bookings editor, said: ‘‘Most large agencies now do castings on Instagram. It’s a great way to get noticed in the first place.’’