Fashion Industry Studies: My Audience

Hey guys! For my Teen Vogue / Parsons class I'm supposed to research  statistics for all my social media channels, including this here blog. The truth is I've always made it a point to be at least a little aware of how well my accounts were doing. It's hard not to care in this day and age. I remember in 2013, when one of my friends told me she had 8k followers on tumblr and I immediately decided that needed to be my next goal because at the time, I only had 2k. Or when I started this blog and I made it my everything. I used to spend 4+ every morning working on content just so that I could have at the very least one post up every day because I had a clear goal in mind and it was fantastic. Of course, I eventually had to stop because of other obligations, i.e. working two jobs to save up for NYC + when I got my kitten and I needed to constantly be watching over her. Still, it was actually very interesting. and I still love learning about the statistics of my social media. I'm hopefully going to be spending more time focusing on better curating my social media + blog in the next few months!

Here are a few of my stats with explanations:

let's start with Twitter, right now I have 850. Last week I had 856, the week before 859 and I know this because 1) I keep track of it, and 2) I'm well aware I started losing followers when I stopped talking about Taylor Swift so much and when I started talking about other, more relevant topics in my life currently. But along with that, I'm also aware that the only reason I gained so many followers so quickly was because Taylor Swift noticed me on tumblr and the whole thing with meeting her in Denver happened. That night was when I gained 200+ followers.

As for tumblr, I currently have two blogs (one for aesthetic + art + personal posts and my older blog, an ex-person blog, for Taylor Swift posts) We'll start with the older blog:

With this tumblr blog, I actually accumulated the followers over time. I've had the blog for a little over 5 years, in 2013 I had 2k followers, but by mid 2014 I had around 4k, then after Taylor Swift joined tumblr and an influx of new fans joined the blogging platform, I gained an additional 8k. In 2015, I stopped using this blog for personal posts and I lost around 2k followers, but I've been steadily regaining them probably since my blog is strictly a fan blog now and not a personal blog. Some people prefer that. I'm simply catering to a different audience.

My second tumblr blog is my personal account, which I only created around 7 months ago. I only have 81 followers so far, but I've found that I gain more followers by posting original content, i.e. personal artwork and scans from my sketchbook and when I message other bloggers and start a conversation. It's a lot like how I started out when I created my first tumblr blog.This one more closely reflects who I am as a person and what my personal aesthetic is like. It's more similar to what my old tumblr blog was before I decided to turn it into a fan blog.

As for this Simply Ceci blog, I always get more views immediately after posting. That's why it's better to actually post just one or two posts a day, several days in a row rather than posting several posts at once on one day. That was the views are more spread out and people can keep coming back to check if there is a new post.  I've also found that advertising posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram helps get more views because then my readers are aware that there's new content up. As you can tell, my most recent posts have been getting between 20-30 views, which is actually more than older posts were getting, but also less than my posts were getting last Spring, when I was consistently posting every day. This is something I really need to work on.

Now, for Instagram I have the most information thanks to iconosquare (Teen Vogue/Parsons actually suggested I use Hootsuite, but it was too confusing for me, so I decided to find what worked for me)

With Instagram, I've been steadily increasing followers over the last few years. One thing I've noticed is that I tend to gain more followers as I increase my use of hashtags. This is something my friends with large followings have told me worked for them as well.

It's also a good idea to post only one picture a day, every day. As you can see from the graphs above, my pictures tend to keep getting likes/comments up until 16 hours after I post the picture, for this reason is better to just post one picture a day. That way people are more likely to like/comment on both, rather than just picking one. For even more notes it's better if I post at night, especially on Mondays around 9pm.

As for content, above I'm showing you my most liked and most commented posts ever. It seems that big events tend to get more likes than regular every day scenes. For example, the time I met Taylor Swift, the time I cut 12" off my hair, the time I got accepted to FIT, and my birthday are all in my most commented. As for my more recent posts,

Since Instagram's update where pictures are no longer in chronological order I've been getting significantly less likes, my average is now around 60-70 as opposed to the 100+ used to get. However, my picture from Coachella (another big event) has more likes than the rest of my pictures.

As a side note, oe thing I personally love doing is keeping with a color scheme or theme every season. For example, last Winter my posts included lots of washed out shades of blue as well as burgundy and white. Last Spring, my colors were pastel tones with lots of grey and white. the Summer after that my posts were very focused around the color green (mint, olive, jade, etc.) as well as bright, neon pink. Lately, my posts have been centered around darker colors and I'm hoping to lighten up my aesthetic for summer.

I hope you enjoyed this post!