The Secrets To Chiara Ferragni’s Success
Have you ever wondered what it would take to be the next big blogger mogul? To travel the world, launch your own clothing line, accrue millions of followers, and secure a seven figure income all from your online presence? Well, The Harvard Business School released an exclusive study about super blogger Chiara Ferragni and it’s pretty insightful.
Since the document is 16 pages long and currently costs $16 to download, we realized that the case study may not be accessible for everyone. So we read the study for you and took notes. Below are a few of our takeaways.
A devoted audience should be your primary objective
Chiara’s blog, The Blonde Salad, was not built overnight. In fact, before Chiara even launched her site she had built a significant online following by sharing her looks on sites like Lookbook.Nu. From there, she realized she could do even more with her following and started her blog.
As we all know, your audience is key to your success. Spend the bulk of your time (this could even mean taking a few years!) to build a large, devoted audience of authentic and engaged followers. Once you have your audience secured, you are already halfway to mogul status.
Surround yourself with positive innovators
Once Chiara knew her audience was ready to see more from her, she began building a team. This was critical to her success, because she built a team of people who had skills that she didn’t have. Chiara has impeccable fashion sense and a strong, relatable online voice — but she needed help with things like production and brand partnerships. So she built a team of experts that could assist her in areas where she had less knowledge. After all, one girl can’t do everything.
Additionally, her team was full of people who wanted to see Chiara’s brand succeed and were content with a more ‘behind the scenes’ role. This is important for a budding mogul to remember. When you are building your own team, don’t hire a team of people who also want to be bloggers. That won’t be helpful. Instead, make sure your team understands that you are the face of your brand right from the beginning. This will spare you from squabbles and confusion later.
Evolve with the trends
The online space is constantly growing and changing. The best online moguls know that they absolutely have to be agile to succeed. Chiara’s online presence has changed completely from when she first started. When The Blonde Salad launched, it was set up like a fashion journal that chronicled Chiara’s amazing outfits. The site still does that but things have changed a lot. Now it is more like an online magazine that weaves Chiara’s personal style with lifestyle content, beauty tips, and trend forecasting.
Additionally, as Chiara and her team began to notice that traffic to The Blonde Salad was declining, they immediately ramped up Chiara’s efforts on Instagram and grew her account to over 10 million followers! Chiara’s success can be credited to her willingness to be fluid and change her business to fit the behavior trends of her audience.
Treat your social presence like a business
When you look at Chiara’s blog or her Instagram account, they may seem like any other fashion enthusiast’s pages. But Chiara is so much more. Behind the scenes she has a full team that is working hard to innovate her social platforms, monetize her online presence and maintain her lighting-fast momentum. Chiara’s impeccable sense of style allows her to be on the cutting edge of trends, and her team works tirelessly to turn Chiara’s natural-born gifts into a sustainable business. Whether it is brand partnerships or event sponsorships, Chiara never stops innovating, elevating, and most importantly, monetizing her brand.
Create an offline product
Once you have mastered your online presence, built a rock-solid audience and built a team that helps to elevate your brand, you can work towards expanding your empire offline as well. Chiara has done this through her popular fashion line and through impressive brand partnerships. For example, Chiara has partnered non fashon brands like Evian water to design a bottle. She has also done global campaigns with brands like Louis Vuitton, SKII, Dior, and Pantene. These mega partnerships have not only solidified her as a fashion mega star, but they have also expanded her presence offline as well which helps to secure the longevity of her amazing brand.
We would love to hear from you! What types of articles would you like for us to write? Let us know in the comments below!
