By Grace Garvey
Wearing sustainable clothing not only shows a person’s love for fashion and trends, but it also represents an individual’s personality, values, and lifestyle. It is no doubt that Millennials will spend $70 on a cotton t-shirt if it means that they are contributing to the environment’s benefit. Social media play a role in brand loyalty in the sustainable fashion industry because influencers are advertising the similarities that align with the customer, such as values, aesthetics, and lifestyles. Followers — aka the consumers — appreciate social media influencers because of their loyalty to sustainable brands, in turn, influencing the followers to become loyal to ethical fashion brands.
Instagram is a key platform for social media influencers. Influencers are able to connect with consumers on a more personal level that conventional advertising does not meet. Kathleen, a sustainable fashion blogger since 2009, has pioneered this movement by using Instagram to promote “progress, not perfection” (Osment-Le, 2020, para. 7). Her goal is to motivate people to become sustainable, even if it takes one step at a time. According to an article in Forbes Magazine, the fashion industry is influencer-driven and the influencers are beginning to realize the shift in consumer values (Bogliari, 2019, para. 21). Brands are now using social media to predict the wants and demands of products to be able to produce accordingly. With this being said, it is safe to say that sustainable fashion influencers are promoting the most effective and best messages for brands. Influencers are becoming the backbone of advertising to Millennials, especially in the sustainable fashion industry.
Sincerely Sustainable 
Out of the vast amounts of social media outlets and applications in use today, it is clear that Instagram is one of the most popular apps among millennials. This article brings to light the positive ways in which Instagram is being used to market and advertise sustainable clothing. It is interesting how social media influencers are able to use Instagram as a platform to endorse these sustainable brands, and the effects this is having on said brands’ consumer demand. It seems as though a social media influencer’s endorsement is more valuable to a brand today than an endorsement from a celebrity, a tactic that has been used in brand advertisements to increase product demand in the past.
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It is interesting how generations have changed the means of advertising. Social media has become key in advertising. It is rare to find a brand that doesn’t have a social media page, even very small brands. Social media has connected businesses to consumers in a way that traditional advertising never did. This is a new era of advertising that is setting the stage for successful advertising and marketing. Thanks for the insight!
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