#32: Our fast fashion post went VIRAL

Takeaways from a crazy week and a lot of good conversations that happened in the comments section on our Instagram.

Beni went viral last week.

We posted a fairly simple Reel calling out fast fashion "haulers" who take to social media to show off their latest haul in an inordinate display of overconsumption.

And, the ~2M people who saw it had a lot to say.

Here're my 2 biggest takeaways 👇

1️⃣ People want a villain.

Donald Miller's StoryBrand framework claims that when you clearly define the "villain" your product or services fight against for your customers, you invite them to join you in that fight.

Rather than attack fast fashion in general, we defined our "villain" as the people taking advantage of the low prices offered by fast fashion companies to buy tons of items at once that they may or may not end up wearing.

Though nuanced, this definition helped us win because it’s authentic to who we are as a brand.

As the self-proclaimed “welcoming party to resale”, our goal is not to shame people for their existing shopping habits.

Instead, we aim to show people a more sustainable way to shop that works with those existing shopping habits. I.e. we’re the friendly tap on the shoulder pointing out where you can get the thing you’re already shopping for, for less, and in a more sustainable way.

This understanding approach is echoed in the comment section:

“No one needs that much stuff 😭 I recently got a decent amount of clothes from old navy because a lot of my old clothes stopped fitting, but it’s all stuff that’s incredibly intentional that I’m very picky about and know I will actually wear.”

2️⃣ Be prepared.

I’d be lying if I said I was prepared to monitor and respond to the 1.2K+ comments we received on this post.

As a two-woman Marketing team (shoutout Kate Sanner), though, we have the advantage of being able to be extremely nimble in our strategy.

For example, another comment we received on the post was, “If they make slow fashion affordable I will buy it. I don’t have the money for expensive clothing.”

This is one of the exact use cases of Beni, so we decided to make an entirely new Reel responding to that comment, which has since gone semi-viral as well, with 32K views.

This experience has been an awesome learning opportunity and one we’ll hopefully continue to see 😅.

I wanted to share in case it’s useful to anyone else currently building a brand and striving to grow organically on social.

And, if you haven’t already read Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller, I highly recommend it as a great place to start.

Lastly, here's the Reel we posted: https://lnkd.in/gQgGTiM5

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Beni users, we want your thoughts:

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You asked. We answered.

Something we were recently asked: Can I use Beni on my computer?

Answer: We have a lot of people who find out about us through mobile ads who don’t know that we have a desktop option, but in fact, it’s our bread and butter.

Have another question? Just ask. Simply reply to this email and we’ll get back to you ASAP (and potentially include it in a future newsletter). Someone else is probably thinking the same thing and they will thank you for it!

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#benifinds for spring baseball:

Batter up!!! Here are some of our favorite finds no matter what team you’re rooting for.

Note: If you clicked on the shop button you realized that it just went to our Instagram. It’s not broken, we’re just testing whether people want to shop collections — and apparently you do (yay!).

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Why we do what we do (Reason #125)

It all comes back to our mission of making an impact on the planet. The system today just doesn’t work — so we’re committed to changing the system. And that starts with meeting people where they are and making the sustainable choice the easy one!

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Coming up with Beni…

April 11th: Kate speaking on ‘Future of Shopping’ panel at Neuehouse in LA —RSVP here!

April 11th: Celine speaking on ‘Building a Regenerative Economy’ panel in LA — RSVP here!

April 17th-18th: Sarah and Kate are heading to Sustainable Fashion Forum in Austin. Let us know if you’ll be there!

April 26th: Sarah speaking on ‘Solutions for Sustainable Living’ panel in SF — RSVP here!

June 4th: We’re co-hosting a pop-up event during NY Tech Week — details coming soon!

TBD: Where else should we go??

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It’s almost our 3rd birthday…

May 17th: It’s our company’s birthday, which feels like a great excuse to celebrate! Anyone want to meet us for happy hour in Chicago, LA, or SF?

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