Due to the development of social networks foreign agencies before making a decision began to look at the Instagram page of models. It is not difficult to understand them. They accept a newcomer into “their family” for three months and want to see how he lives, what he is interested in, whether the model has taste, what she thinks about. They open the page and there are the answers: “This is an Autumn leaf that fell today”, “This is my left knee”, “This is my hamburger – it was unrealistically super-duper-delicious”, “This is the wall of my house”, “This is me drunk at a party smoking a hookah”, “This is my three hundred first selfie (I hope you look at all the previous ones)”, “This is my pedicure”… Continue? Is the idea already catching on? The agency of course is aware that this is your personal page but after such photos they will most likely write a refusal to the mother agency and will not explain the reasons why.
Remember one thing — having decided to become an international model you become a public person, a person whose page you want to look at as an oasis, hoping to see beautiful faces, beautiful places and your involvement in fashion there. Being a model, especially a foreign one, means something more: people come to your page for a dream, for you to share a piece of fashion with them. So share it. Not necessarily every day. Post more interesting places where you visit on trips and tell a couple of facts about this place. Post your photos from the book (but you do not need to turn the page into a book). Tell us about your favourite models, photographers and designers (not necessarily the world renowned ones, but with whom you worked today, and those who you feel are talented). Share some of your hobbies, photos with friends, relatives, dogs and cats.
Once, at a casting in Japan, one of two men was chosen for a very prestigious and highly paid job. Both had a strong book, the same height and type. One of the book had an amateur photo in an embrace with his younger sister, which he hid in his pocket along with the composites. The picture was cute and simple, the customers were touched, sighed like it was “so cute”, and chose him. I do not urge you to rush to put photos of dogs and sisters in your pocket in a book, but the moral is this, there are a lot of models now, all with good photos, in great shape, the competition is huge. Agencies are looking for something more. It maybe simplicity, a sense of humour, style, taste, the ability to be funny. So the next time you post something on Instagram and social networks, remember that your photos are often viewed by international scouts and decide who they should choose for this season on their team.
Here are some tips.
– Make yourself a convenient nickname and a good avatar (this applies to WhatsApp, WeChat, Skype, etc. where there are avatars).
– Mark the address of your mother agency on your page. If you have two agencies (a local one and one that works with you on a foreign path), mark both. Also mark the foreign agencies and countries in which you have already worked, your country (city is not essential), you can add age. Nothing else is needed. Write in English. You can write posts in any language.
– You do not need to mark other parent agencies or models on your photos.
– Do not post photos with cigarettes, hookahs or alcohol.
– Don’t take too many selfies in the mirror.
– Don’t lay out your body parts. Another thing is if the eye, for example, is a proffoto with a professional image for a well-known magazine.
– Share some thoughts about fashion: about the models that you like, about the book, about the magazines you read, about the movies, the stylist with whom you worked.
– Post backstages — behind the scenes is always interesting.
– Share beautiful places. Being on a contract for three months and not posting a single photo seems strange. And we are interested in seeing even the Eiffel Tower and the Duomo for the hundredth time.
– Don’t be afraid to fool around in the photo and be ugly. The models are also not perfect and they have unsuccessful, but cute photos.
If you are in doubt or want to ask for advice on maintaining Instagram, you can always ask your mother agency how best to do it. They always try to find you a trusted agency with a good reputation, so help them to make your reputation look decent in the eyes of the host party.
Text by K. Mironova
