Is YouTube the Fashion Industry’s New Instagram?

Since the fashion industry transitioned from the era of the blogger to era of the Instagram influencer the social media platform has reigned supreme as the go-to social channel for fashion brands and publications. Instagram seemed virtually unstoppable, changing the way fashion magazines had to approach content, and leading consumers to shop clothes through the platform. That said; nothing last forever, and it looks like Instagram is starting to find a competitor in a more senior video platform, YouTube.

In September of last year, YouTube launched YouTube Fashion, a dedicated fashion vertical that capitalizes on the style and beauty content that trends so well on the platform. For frame of reference, there’s an entire culture of beauty vloggers that make their livings from creating YouTube beauty tutorials and showcasing makeup hauls. According to Statista, beauty videos generated 169 billion views on YouTube. This caught the attention of fashion industry insiders who believe that beauty viewers can be converted to fashion.

To compete with YouTube’s video offerings, Instagram launched IGTV in June 2018, but it hasn’t picked up the traction that YouTube has. Instagram’s discover feature comes with a style tab for the fashion conscious Instagramers, but YouTube Fashion has also managed to take videos from fashion beauty creators, collaborations between fashion brands and video creators like The Dolan Twins, along with content from brands like Ralph Lauren and publications like British Vogue.

While the advantage Instagram has over YouTube is that users can shop through the app, with magazine publishing houses like Condé Nast and Hearst investing heavily in video, YouTube appears to be poised to win the fashion video war. And with Derek Blasberg poised as YouTube’s secret weapon, YouTube is primed to continue being boss hog.

Blasberg made a name for himself in the fashion industry as a prominent fashion editor, having held roles at Style.com, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vanity Fair. He was also a broadcast figure as the host of “CNN Style.” With over 900,000 Instagram followers, Blasberg was a well-established household name, influencer, and figure in the fashion industry, and YouTube saw the potential he had to transform their fashion vertical.

As a front row fixture at fashion week for years, Blasberg had a rolodex that anyone wanting to connect with fashion’s biggest names would want to get their hands on. During his short time at YouTube, he has managed to add more channels, increase total uploads, and improve viewing times. He’s gotten notable fashion figures, including Naomi Campbell and Victoria Beckham, to launch YouTube channels, and has also helped YouTube capture some of fashion’s digital ad dollars as fashion brands continue shifting their ad dollars from print to online verticals.

According to Vogue Business, in 2018 YouTube generated an estimated 5.3 billion dollars in U.S. ad revenue, although it was dwarfed by Instagram’s 9.1 billion dollars. Advertising spent on free on-demand video, which includes platforms like IGTV and YouTube, is expected to reach as much as 37 billion dollars by 2022, up from 16 billion dollars in 2017, according to Juniper research.

Despite the belief that Instagram is in competition with Instagram, Blasberg insists that YouTube’s goal is to replace TV. In terms of social media channels, YouTube Fashion could still easily catch up with Instagram, as the overall platform has twice as many users, with 2 billion YouTube users worldwide. YouTube’s challenge is that luxury brands, like Louis Vuitton, haven’t enabled ads on their videos as they haven’t begun treating YouTube as a revenue source. However, all that could change.

Gone are the days when YouTube was just a platform for music videos and funny clips on the internet, it has turned itself into a dynamic behemoth that is essential to a brand’s commercial relevance and popularity. Fashion content on YouTube once focused around long-form things like campaign videos or videos from runway shows, but now influencers, who are trying to add to their streams of revenue, have found that videos of things like closet hauls and day-in-the-life type videos trend very well.

Marcel Floruss, a menswear influencer who has been the face of Hugo Boss’ ads, counts 456,000 followers on Instagram compared to his 500,000+ followers for his YouTube channel. He’s part of a growing trend of influencers finding bigger audiences on YouTube.

While Instagram and the fashion industry’s love for it won’t die tomorrow, when it comes to video content YouTube looks poised to be the digital platform that will eventually be king. Video is fashion’s new frontier, and YouTube comes with the audience and capabilities to make it happen seamlessly.

Kristopher Fraser

Image credits

• youtube-feature.jpg — Credit/source: nytimes.com.
• igtv-embedfashion.png — Credit/source: embedsocial.com.
• derek-blasberg-2.jpg — Editorial image.
• youtube-fashion-youtube.jpg — Credit/source: youtube.com.
• marcel-floruss-lookbook.jpg — Credit/source: lookbook.com.
• youtube-feature-2.jpg — Editorial image.