REVOLVE
Dissecting the Social Media Strategy Behind the It-Girl Cult of Instagram
Lifestyles of the rich and famous have been a vocal point of pop culture for decades. In the age of social media, however, they present an opportunity for capitalization which hasn’t existed in the past. In practice, this is called influencer marketing: a strategy which identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, then uses them to generate content and sell, sell, sell. As evidenced through their Instagram account, hugely successful e-commerce retailer REVOLVE has mastered this strategy.
#REVOLVEinthehamptons #REVOLVEaroundtheworld #REVOLVEfestival
If you follow any bloggers in fashion, lifestyle, or beauty, you’ll probably recognize these hashtags from your own Instagram feed. Typically, they’re plastered underneath content featuring beautiful women, wearing beautiful clothes in beautiful places, such as the Hamptons, Coachella, or Thailand. Dually noted is that these photos are always sponsored or posted by REVOLVE. It’s not always clear what product is being advertised, but if REVOLVE has had their hands on it, the post will most likely hit your I-want-to-be-her radar. But, you might find yourself wondering, what the heck is REVOLVE?
REVOLVE is an e-commerce fashion retailer co-founded in 2003 by Michael Mente and Mike Karanikolas, two business partners with no prior experience in the fashion industry. They wanted to create accessible fashion for the growing style scene in Los Angeles by leveraging the emerging e-commerce market. Before the days of Amazon and other e-commerce giants, an online store was a completely innovative way to make your product more accessible and tailored to a target market. Mente and Karanikolas set their sights on denim in particular, offering a variety of denim brands, washes and sizes directly through the REVOLVE website. With the rise of e-commerce in the late 2000s, REVOLVE continued to grow as the perfect inbetween of a luxury retailer and a trendy department store in the form of an e-commerce site; somewhere that you could covet one up-and-coming designer’s dress for $45 and another one for $945. Further, the emergence of social media marketing has cemented REVOLVE’s cult status.
This is what the website looks like today:
Social media is the absolute core of REVOLVE’s marketing strategy, particularly focused on Instagram. Their feed, followed by over 2.1 million people, is filled with colourful shots featuring models and influencers decked in clothing available on their store. Each photograph has the designer and model linked, leading followers into the seemingly never-ending REVOLVE network. Further, their bio lists a link that leads you to a likeshop.me page where you can trace each item of clothing in any given post. You can also do a deep-dive into their account through highlighted stories featuring their glamourous trips, brand collaborations, and contests.
Beyond operating their own successful account, REVOLVE has harnessed user-generated content (UGC) by recruiting hundreds of bloggers, celebrities and style influencers to advertise the brand. They don’t open the doors for UGC to just anyone, either. REVOLVE is highly selective about working with influencers who encompass their vibe while also having a massive reach; Essentially, REVOLVE partnerships are reserved for the upper echelon of influencers. The company activates their influencer marketing through lavish events, flooded with bloggers, models, social media stars, and A-list celebrities alike. These parties range from weekend day parties in lavish locations like Malibu and the Hamptons, to festivals, to glamorous Hollywood launch parties. There’s always an element of allure involved, from the decor to the fashion, which in-turn creates massive buzz. Also worth noting is that REVOLVE’s brand activation process for these events begins by decking out all attendees in the newest pieces being launched at REVOLVE, therefore leading to their products being advertised in many of the posts attached to the event’s hashtag.
Outside of lavish events, REVOLVE’s brand activations take the form of photoshoots, sponsored posts, and even all-expenses-paid trips. On these worldwide trips, influencers are set up in five star accommodations and given an itinerary chalk full of lust-worthy activities, from yachting in Spain to cliff diving in Tulum. Most importantly, are required tag REVOLVE and #REVOLVEaroundtheworld at least twice per day, along with the designers of their outfits.
The final piece of REVOLVE’s influencer marketing strategy encompasses influencer brand collaborations. Although REVOLVE primarily sells brands by external designers, they will often launch co-branded lines between themselves, an influencer, and an exclusive designer, including Olivia Culpo x Marled x REVOLVE and Sincerely Jules x REVOLVE Beauty Box. Since the products are heavily promoted both through REVOLVE’s own efforts and those of the influencer, their exposure is often multiplied. Further, REVOLVE has extended the brand outside of their own e-commerce platform through a number of pop-up shops in L.A. which are, as always, heavily marketed by the influencer community.
So, is their influencer marketing strategy working? Here’s what we know about how these strategies perform:
- In October 2017, WWD reported that over “70% of overall sales at REVOLVE were driven by an influencer”.
- 65% of brands conduct some type of influencer marketing within their marketing strategy.
- The world of influencer marketing is estimated to have been worth $5–10 billion in 2017.
- For every $1 spent on influencer marketing in 2016, marketers saw a return of $6.85.
Here’s why it they work:
- 92% of consumers trust brand recommendations from other people, even those they don’t know in real life.
- Further, 62% of 18 to 24 year olds would buy a YouTuber endorsed product versus celebrity endorsed.
- Much of the time influencers, such as YouTubers, have a further reach due to their relatableness in comparison to often unrelatable celebrities.
Business Intelligence (BI) is a crucial aspect of REVOLVE’s marketing strategy since they place such a heavy emphasis on social media. Although it may be challenging for REVOLVE to measure the total return on investment (ROI) derived from their influencer marketing efforts, due to the multiple channels involved, there are a number of metrics that are vital to the brand’s strategy. These are include engagement rates (likes and comments), impressions (views), and conversion rates. REVOLVE is actually in a unique position as far as their access to marketing data since their strategy is almost entirely based on social media, one of the most seamless marketing channels to measure.
The world of REVOLVE isn’t all rainbows and sunshine, though. The brand actively participates in cultivating social media stressors. Stressors are feelings brought on by different aspects of social media that can spiral into serious mental health issues if we aren’t made aware of them. REVOLVE participates in three out of four major stressors: the highlight reel, FOMO, and social currency.
The highlight reel is the tendency to only post the highlights in our lives — our best, most beautiful, and most like-worthy moments. The flip side of this is that we don’t get exposure to the not-so-beautiful, real parts of the lives that we follow on social media. This, in turn, creates a landscape prone to self-comparison and self-doubt. Brands like REVOLVE are in positions of power when it comes to either supporting this stressor or acting against it and, unfortunately, REVOLVE’s Instagram page generates highly unrealistic standards for women. They do so by primarily featuring highly stylized models posed as “real girls” in their images, often in glamourous situations that wouldn’t be accessible to middle-class people.
This leads into the next stressor that REVOLVE participates in, fear of missing out, also known as FOMO. FOMO is exactly what it sounds like, increasing feelings of anxiety about missing an event or moment since you have to bare witness to it on social media. In fact, REVOLVE’s entire business model is built around FOMO; They use influencers to convince the target demographic that the first step to living an influencer’s lifestyle is wearing clothing sold on REVOLVE. In particular, REVOLVE uses their luxurious events and trips to lure women into wanting the lifestyle that they’re marketing. REVOLVE’s perpetration of FOMO even reaches their influencer network, with YouTubers and Instagram stars allegedly “dying” to become REVOLVE brand partners.
As evidenced, that strategy is working, and it has given REVOLVE a highly perceived brand value. Essentially, if influencers wear it, then their entire following will too. That in itself is the third and final stressor that REVOLVE participates in: social currency. Social currency is the validation of products through social media engagement. Although consumers can’t touch or try on items that REVOLVE sells through their screens, influencers will lead them into deeming pieces as must-haves just by giving their recommendation. REVOLVE operates off of this “Economy of Attention”. With each post, they’re vying for you to validate their products with your likes, comments, and shares. In the age of e-commerce, social currency can have a destructive influence in claiming value and quality where it may not actually exist.
REVOLVE is everywhere, and their presence is growing. When Coachella comes around this month, take a glance at your feed and make a mental note every time you catch a “@revolve” or #REVOLVEfestival. You’d be amazed at how subtly the brand creeps into your feed without you realizing it. Take this as a case study of a nearly perfect influencer marketing strategy: one that makes you want to be them, provides a call-to-action to do so, and keeps you locked in by letting you bare witness to their social events and travels. Well done, REVOLVE.
