New York Fashion Week officially ended today.

If you’ve been following any news from this week’s past events:

*You would know that Hood By Air made weird fashion magic with PornHub

**Kayne West’s Yeezy Show was considered a hot mess

***Fashion insider Eva Chen was everywhere you wish you were.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKTNjNjhA2A/?taken-by=evachen212&hl=en

Former editor-in-chief for Lucky Magazine, Chen is Instagram’s head of fashion partnerships, as well as CEO of Trend Micro. (She’s also my hero)

Over 600,000 fans keep track of the fashion maven via IG. And if you are an Instagram stalker like me, you’d know that she’s pregnant with her second child to Tom Bannister, and loves to show off  her shoes from the backseat of car services. I especially love her #ootd shots, featuring designer Rosetta Getty and Tanya Taylor.

Chen is also a brilliant digital strategist. In an interview with Business of Fashion, Chen lays out five basic principles for clothing brands big and small.

Paraphrased from Business of Fashion:

1. Seek real conversational engagement online. “It’s not a numbers game,” Chen says. “You can have millions of followers, but more important is whether people are commenting and tagging their friends. That means you’ve created something that people are talking about and that’s what makes a good post.”
2. Possess a strong visual identity. “ust as when you pick up a magazine, whether it’s Self Service or Vogue, and you could remove the title from the cover, but you would still know which magazine it was just from the image, the typography, the talent they’re using, the tone of voice — that logic extends to Instagram as well. “
3. Be authentic! “The accounts I love following most all have the sense that there are real people behind them.”
4. Develop and grow a community. “The Instagram audience wants to feel like they’re a part of something. The conversation is really important — talking back to your followers, asking questions of them. It’s not something that every brand does. But I think Valentino, for example, does this very, very well.”
5. Collaborate with active IGers. “Gucci is a great example. They do something called #GucciGram, where they collaborate with artists on Instagram. They have a collaboration with a painter named Unskilled Worker. “

What are you doing to cultivate a strong voice for your brand? What tools do you think you need in order to take your vision to the next level? Share with us @afpnyc!

Jacqueline Colette Prosper, yummicoco.com