How Tech & Social Media Empowered These Women to Launch their Online Brands

Welcome to our new TLL segment, "The Business Behind" where we talk about the business side of fashion and what we can learn from it. Our first post is all about tech, women & fashion, a fascinating topic that I hope inspires all of you to pursue that entrepreneurial side with the help of technology!

Thanks to social media and the rise of ecommerce, women entrepreneurs suddenly have half of the tools needed to build their brands. They no longer have to jump through loopholes and obstacles to get venture capital funding (of which the entirety of female founders only got 2.2% of the total $130 billion in venture capital in 2018). Today, women can build direct-to-consumer brands completely online and use their influence to build a loyal customer base whose values resonate with those of the brands.

Great examples include Danielle Bernstein of Shop WeWoreWhat, Cass Dimicco of Aureum or Allegra Shaw of Uncle Studios. Allegra, a Toronto native, founded Uncle Studios in 2016 and describes it to GenW as "Everyday sustainable staples- with a focus on female empowerment and androgyny." The brand is all about sustainability and aims to break the current cycle where our clothes earn up in a landfill. With two others, she built Uncle by leveraging her digital skills as a content creator with seven years of experience, as well as using the power of social media to give a voice to her brand. When asked specifically about the power of social media platforms, she says: "There is a lot of room for growth in creating your own brand and promoting it through your social media."

Danielle Bernstein's newest ShopWWW drop was all denim, and she showed the fits and fabrics in her personal Instagram the week leading up to the launch.

Cass Dimicco is a favorite of ours: we've been following her for a while and have seen how she seamlessly weaves together her personal content with sneak peaks of her upcoming brand drops. She's the founder of Aureum Collective, an online jewelry brand with a fiery personality. Yes, brands have personalities - we'll talk about that later ;) Aureum, meaning "gold" in Latin, is meant for "our customer to put on our pieces and instantly feel elevated in an effortless way." Dimicco and her boyfriend founded the brand based on their mutual love for style, and they found inspiration in classic jewelry collections. Because Dimicco has amassed more than 200,000 followers on Instagram, she has been able to weave her brand into her weekly posts, highlighting Aureum pieces in every post she's wearing them. Her followers have been able to see her grow as an influencer AND as an entrepreneur, as she's shown the behind-the-scenes of her collections and often shares her nerves right before a drop. This level of relatability and "insider access" from the viewpoint of the customer are things you often cannot get when shopping at a huge brand or retailer, which is what makes technology such a powerful tool for female founders. Dimicco's followers have seen her grow and struggle to build her vision with Aureum, and they flock to her online website to purchase the pieces they see her wear with so much love.

When asked what technology and social media has meant for the growth of her brand, Cass doesn't shy away from the truth: in an interview for Data, But Make it Fashion, she said "I’ve always looked at my job as an influencer as a means to an end. My end goal was never to grow on Instagram, but to do so to eventually have an audience to sell my creations to. Aureum’s success is mainly due to my existing following that I already had, and the amazing network of other digital females with their own audience who have supported me." Having this clear, Dimicco was able to build a DTC brand whose digital presence is getting stronger every day - without the need for venture capital money or large marketing budgets. It's just her, her ability to create relatable and beautiful content, and the strong connection she's built with her followers (who've turned into customers).

Studies have shown that Instagram usage is 12% higher among females than males, which means that women are able to easily find their target customers in this space. This, plus their overall ability to leverage aesthetics, valuable content, and human connection through stories and posts means that many of these women -- like Dimicco, Shaw, or Berstein of WeWoreWhat -- are able to convert a follower base into a customer base without having to get extra funding for huge investments. Their brilliant use of social media and the digital space are investment enough to elevate their brands. Dimicco's certain that,

creating beautifully imagery online and having a face behind [Aureum] really helps separate it from other companies.

There's a seemingly endless list of women who were able to utilize the digital space to give life to their brands. We see this in latin fashion as well, with Maria Jose Arroyo of MJA Shoes building a following not just for her shoe brand but also for herself. She's been able to differentiate her brand from other shoe makers by creating content around herself and her shoes, with stories and posts touching on style advice as well as her most recent collections. With almost 100,000 followers, Arroyo adds a signature colorful vibe to all her brands including MJA studios, where she further shows off her creative endeavors. She's ventured into online styling classes and recently launched her own website. In fact, her most recent course launches in 16 days, and she promises students will learn "To create content with greater visual attraction for your followers and become a commercial focus."

Clearly, the creative director will stop at nothing in pursuit of expanding her brand - and this knowledge of content creation will allow her to keep growing all her MJA lines. Platforms like Instagram and the digital spaces used for her online store have been invaluable tools in getting her brand out there and expanding her success as a content creator in Colombia.

L-R: @mjastudios art; the boss babe @mariajosearroyog; a pair from her brand @mjashoes

Overall, we encourage you to take a page out of these founders' books on how to leverage technology and style to build online brands that your followers love.

No one is better versed in the art of connecting to people than those whose brands are built for the same target audience that they interact with every single day through social media channels. It's the perfect time to focus on a building strong online presence where your brands can exist in, as well as making use for the many tools (Wix, Squarespace, Shopfiy, etc) that are empowering women like ourselves to build the digital spaces for their brands. From scratch. Sometimes, the first big investment you need to launch is time, determination and a great sense of style!

With love,

TLL