By Gabriela Yorgova
Social media is influencing society in all aspects, especially fashion and lifestyle. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are some of the main media outlets that young people use.
Building trust, showing products in use, and offering reviews are all tactics that brands use to advertise their products. UGC (user-generated content) creators have become a powerful tool for communicating messages, inspiration and sharing knowledge and experiences.
Microtrends are created on social media, they are being promoted online and are also an opportunity for fast-fashion brands to recreate them and produce them in less than a month.
Mila Zabi, director of recruitment in a marketing company, shared her observation on the impact of social media. “Young people, in particular, are quite impressionable. And I feel like TikTok just promotes the wrong thing, sometimes, including fashion,” she said.
Sustainable – or not sustainable…
The viral video platform TikTok has created a way for users to sell their products and promote them in one place. Teenagers and young adults are the majority of TikTok users. Thus, sellers are targeting this age group with their affordable prices. However, the quality might not be the best. And the question that comes to mind is… how sustainable is that?
Noemie Caprini, owner of a coffee shop, mixes fast-fashion and slow fashion in her wardrobe. She said: “We try [not to buy fast fashion clothing], but sometimes, we’re all tempted to buy online, even from those apps like Temu.”
Fashion is one of the main categories which users and popular clothing stores sell on TikTok Shop. TikTok Shop is a feature that allows watchers to find the products that creators show on screen. Links during a live stream, under the videos, in the so-called “bio”, are the main options for the community to make a quick purchase.
Many of the shops tend to offer discounts from 10% to 50%, compared to other platforms where they sell similar items. Discounted pieces, additional price reductions, and even giveaways are booming on the For You Page. Users can buy a piece of clothing for less than £10, including dresses, blouses, even makeup and jewellery.
Too much influence?
TikTok has so much influence that the United States is working to ban it – unless its Chinese owner divests from the company. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is now under scrutiny in the US government, as it claims that TikTok is working to “access user data and influence Americans through the wildly popular social media platform’s addictive algorithm”, according to Aljazeera.
Could the UK be next?
While TikTok is a platform where brands can get more exposure, we can see the appetite for selling more and more products and promoting overconsumption. The impact only one of the main online media outlets has had on the fashion industry is negative. So, it is up to the customers to make more mindful choices of their purchases, and up to the content creators to promote more sustainable fashion and factual information.
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