Amanda Medina, Etam: “We now have real expertise on Instagram”

All swimwear co-creations done with influencers work very well. Last year for example, Etam worked for the second year running with fashion influencer Lison Sebellin (543,000 followers on Instagram), on the creation of a swimwear collection that sold very well. This year, we’ll be launching a co-creation collection with influencer Wendy Swan, who has almost 370,000 followers on Instagram.

The best advice I can give is to test as much as possible, while remaining in line with your brand image. Choose suitable influencer profiles and prioritise quality over quantity, according to your budget. That’s how you find the right influencer at the right time. It may sound logical, but sometimes the simplest recipes are the best.

Etam works with a press office that advises us from time to time on influencer marketing. But given our good knowledge of the influencers’ market in France, our work is mainly done in-house. Three of us work on the social media team and three on the influencers’ side. When a new influencer emerges on the market, we first test their community’s appetite for Etam’s products. Depending on the results, we then decide whether or not to repeat the collaboration. At the same time, we sometimes get some nice surprises, with influencers promoting our products without us having sponsored anything.

All swimwear co-creations done with influencers work very well. Last year for example, Etam worked for the second year running with fashion influencer Lison Sebellin (543,000 followers on Instagram), on the creation of a swimwear collection that sold very well. This year, we’ll be launching a co-creation collection with influencer Wendy Swan, who has almost 370,000 followers on Instagram.

The best advice I can give is to test as much as possible, while remaining in line with your brand image. Choose suitable influencer profiles and prioritise quality over quantity, according to your budget. That’s how you find the right influencer at the right time. It may sound logical, but sometimes the simplest recipes are the best.

Today, our influencer marketing strategy is well established, as we work all year round with around 500 influencers in all countries, 300 of whom we invite to our fashion shows. Etam is also developing long-term collaborations, whereby an influencer can co-create a capsule collection with our designers.

When it comes to choosing influencers, it all depends on our campaign objectives. If our objective is branding and we want to convey a strong message, we’ll need a spokesperson, and therefore a committed influencer and opinion leader. If our objective is to increase our conversion rate, we’ll work with influencers with highly engaged communities who convert well into sales.

In terms of community, Etam works as much with celebrities as with content creators with smaller communities. There’s bound to be a greater reach with a celebrity, but no guarantee of higher sales. Conversely, a lesser-known influencer may have such a strong, engaged community that, depending on their posts, sales can take off.