Beyond Aesthetic: Critical Reflections on Social Media and Brand Credibility in Sustainable Fashion
In the early days of my sustainable fashion brand, social media was primarily a tool for me to promote and use - to showcase designs, attract attention, and increase visibility. Over time, however, I have come to realize that social platforms are not neutral communication spaces, but rather expressive and interactive arenas. Brand values are constantly being interpreted, amplified, and even questioned by social media. For this blog, I'm going to focus on this phenomenon and reflect on the role social media has played in my branding process: shaping trust and constantly challenging the solidity of a brand's reputation.
As scholars such as Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) have pointed out, social media is not only a tool for information dissemination, but also a space for identity construction. For an emerging sustainable fashion brand, every headline, comment, and color scheme creates a continuously updated narrative externally, thus becoming a brand that influences others' perceptions. Therefore, I deliberately kept the brand's visual consistency across its online pages - using a natural color palette and minimalist aesthetic, complemented by inspirational quotes about eco-friendly lifestyles. This is a common visual language for “green brands” in the industry, but I realized that this highly aestheticized presentation could sometimes mask the true depth of the brand's philosophy.
A small “PR crisis” was the turning point: before creating the brand's website, I posted a post on Rednote about using recycled semi-synthetic fibers in the design of the products, which was met with some skepticism, with some comments directly questioning whether the material was truly environmentally friendly. Outside of this, I saw these types of comments as a threat to the brand's credibility, but on reflection, I realized that this was an opportunity for me to take responsibility. As Goffman, E.'s (1959) theory of ‘impression management’ suggests, audiences are not passive recipients of information but are actively involved in interpreting it, even questioning its authenticity. So I wrote a detailed post explaining the source of the materials, the relative trade-offs in environmental performance, and disclosing the underlying logic and rationale for my choice. Through this response, it became clearer to me that transparency, not only in the raw material itself but also in the narratives we build around it, should be embodied.
This experience also exposed another common paradox in brand management for freelancers: on the one hand, we rely on social platforms to gain attention and potential clients, and we want to be trusted; on the other hand, platform algorithms constantly push us to pursue ‘visibility’ rather than ‘authenticity’. On the other hand, platform algorithms continue to push us to seek ‘visibility’ rather than ‘authenticity’. Therefore, I believe that the growth of a sustainable brand should not only be a ‘result-oriented’ presentation but also a ‘process-oriented’ continuous communication. Audience trust built with knowledge and authenticity-driven content grows slowly but is more valuable in the long run.
Social media is not only a stage for ideal communication, but also a dynamic space where brand credibility is continuously negotiated and reinvented. As a brand creator, I now see it less as a marketing tool and more as a ‘relational ecology’ where reputation management requires not only strategic awareness but also ethical transparency.
Reference
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, [online] 53(1), pp.59–68. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003.
