Social media and fashion imagery online are taking over the fashion industry and creating a new and easy way to look at fashion. Specifically looking at Instagram as a fashion imagery platform, I find it interesting how easy it is to 'shop the look' and purchases products straight off of Instagram.
Recently I have been posting a lot on my personal Instagram page, (that is linked in this blog). I have been posting three images a day where I have had a makeup artist and stylist helping me. The images are based off your personal opinions on how you as an audience feel I should look on my Instagram page.
As a fashion Photographer and Instagram photographer too, I wanted to look at the difference between fashion editorial photography and Instagram photography. I use both in my everyday life but I feel there is a great different between both. I believe that Instagram photography and image making is controlled highly by the audience of the creator.
I conducted a social experiment to see how my audience would react to have full control over my Instagram pictures for over a week. I wanted to do this to see:
1. What my audience would choose for me to look like.
2. How they would react to the change in character.
3. Whether they are happy with their choices as a final outcome.
Social Influence on Instagram is all about conforming to your audience and their wants and needs. Being obiendant to the wants and needs of your audience and eventually feeling accepted by your audience for what you have created and posted. I feel that this influences a lot of Instagram Influencers, to feel the need to conform to their audience to keep followers and continue growing their platform. Here many Instagram Influencers feel the need to create a performance for their audience that is unrealistic or highlights positive parts of their real life just to conform to societies social media standards.
You as my audience have been voting on my Instagram stories via polls for outfits, makeup and hair looks, locations and posing that you want to see me create. I have then taken these votes and made them into photos to post on my page for you to see. With the photos I have posted I want to see what your response was to the new me, through comments and DM's.
All these images were taken as self portraits on a tripod and with a remote control and played the role of an Instagram photographer. I used a makeup artist and stylist in all the images to get the best possible looks that I could.
Example of a Post
Voting
Final Image
My Findings
Through this social experiment I found, that with the voting, you as my audience were voting for quite extreme outfits and makeup looks in the beginning then as we got further and further in to the voting, the outfit choices became a bit less extreme. I also found that not everyone liked the outcomes of the voting, my like percentage on my photos dropped to nearly 6% when my like percentage is merely 8-10%. I also found that not many people were commenting on the looks as normal. On the other hand I got a lot of response from fashion brands, either through comments on my images, DM's in to my inbox or emails to my personal email address. I also found that I was posted on the Missguided website as a shop the Instagram for a photo. Therefore I found that conforming my the audiences choices meant that my audience weren't necessarily happy with the outcomes but may fashion brands were happy and wanted me to take pictures of their products in this way too. Although my audience did not like the images as much as before, I found that I went up by 100 followers in a week, therefore these images were making my profile stand out more than others.
Check out my Instagram page for more.
Love Vicky x
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