Author: Rose Leadem / Source: Entrepreneur
In this series, Instagram Icon, Entrepreneur speaks with the individuals behind popular Instagram accounts to find out the secrets of their success.
While scrolling through your Instagram feed, you’re presented with a curated selection of posts from fashion bloggers to artists to brands. And what might look like a simple photograph may actually be content that took months to create. That’s what Entrepreneur learned from fashion blogger and Instagram icon Lainy Hedaya.
Hedaya launched her New York City fashion blog, Haute Inhabit, in 2011, which gave her a headstart on social media. Having studied design in school, Hedaya has always had an eye for aesthetics, so when she eventually tapped into Instagram, she was a natural.
Today, Hedaya uses Instagram to show off her eye for fashion through her minimalistic and chic lens. And she’s leveraged the platform for business too — from branded partnerships to even selling her own paintings. Appealing to the luxury market, Instagram’s been a perfect fit for her fashion-hungry followers. “An audience prefers to see fashion in a very fast way rather than waiting every day for a [blog] post online,” Hedaya says.
She says she spends “all day, every day” on the platform. And those efforts pay off: With a following of more than 150,000, Instagram has become one of her biggest revenue generators.
Entrepreneur caught up with Hedaya to learn how she’s built a following, created relationships with major luxury brands and launched her career through Instagram.
How did you get your start with Instagram?
I started a blog first, and then I [felt] like social media just became a 360 thing with blogging. I initially started the blog when blogging was becoming a thing, and slowly transferred the focus over.
An audience prefers to see fashion in a very fast way rather than waiting every day for a post online and having to check back on a website. They have their own feed of all bloggers, so it kind of just snowballed from the blog to the Instagram. I do think there is some value in having a blog as a home base, and a nuance to how to share the same story on both.
What other platforms do you use and what percentage of the time do you spend on them vs. Instagram?
I use Twitter, I use Snapchat, I use Facebook obviously. I used to love Vine but then they folded, which makes me so sad because I really think they had something going there.
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Peter Bordes Jr
Founder & Managing Partner Trajectory Ventures. Lifetime entrepreneur, CEO, Board Member, mentor, advisor and investor.
Obsessed with the infinite realm of possibility in disruptive innovation driving global digital transformation in technology, cloud-based infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data, DevOps, fintech, robotics, aerospace, blockchain and digital media and advertising.