Onstage with James talking tech and fashion at the Bespoke Summit this evening. Thanks to everyone for the crowd-sourced pictures since we couldn’t take our own ;)
WHY I INSTAGRAM - By Coco Rocha for Vogue
Around 2006 I began noticing the photographers waiting outside runway shows were beginning to outnumber those actually working inside. They were shooting our “model-off-duty” looks and plastering them all over the Internet, where they garnered as much interest and discussion as the campaigns and editorials in which we star.
These days everyone is his or her own street-style photographer, myself included. As a model in the digital age, the ability to reach an audience outside of the traditional magazine ad and billboard realm is increasingly important to me and my clients who realize we live in a new world of far more social networking- and endorsement-based advertising—from what your friend in school “likes” on Facebook to what your favorite top model wears in her downtime. I use platforms including Instagram, Tumblr, and Pose on a near daily basis to document my own looks for my almost ten million followers worldwide. The responses to my posts are always a gauge of how well I did with my personal styling. A picture that garners 30,000 likes versus one that only gets 5,000 says a lot about where I hit and miss in capturing the fashion zeitgeist. (Surprisingly the pics of just me at home usually get more likes than the ones of me with celebrities or designers.) The only time I get negative feedback is when I post a look containing fur, so now that definitely crosses my mind before I post an image to social media. While I believe everyone must make up his or her own mind, I don’t like to unnecessarily act insensitive to my followers.
Often I’ll have my husband, James, take a few dozen pictures with his phone and then we will edit them until we’ve found the most aesthetically pleasing and interesting image. After that, we filter the pictures using a host of iPhone apps like Camera+, Pictwo, and Snapseed before we decide the image is ready for posting. Selections are always about quality versus quantity. There is no formula as to exactly how many photos I Instagram per day; one day I may post a single shot, where other days I may put up a dozen. I try to share sneak peeks of events I attend, behind the scenes moments at photoshoots, or anything I witness that I think my followers would find interesting.
Models are never really “off duty” anymore, and I view social media as an extension of my career as a whole. Sometimes posting can feel like a chore and in those cases I view it as a necessary part of my work, but other times it’s genuinely fun to share and document my life with friends far and wide. It’s the way of the 21st-century girl.
See our slideshow above featuring our favorite Coco Rocha Instagrams.
Thank you to TIME Magazine for naming my Twitter one of the 140 best of 2013! I guess I can relax now for the next 9 months! Xx Coco
http://techland.time.com/2013/03/25/140-best-twitter-feeds-of-2013/slide/coco-rocha/
Tonight for the finale of The Face I’m live-tweeting on the @StyleWatchMag handle AND my @CocoRocha handle. Yep, sitting here with TWO LAPTOPS and an iPad!
FANCY X COCO ROCHA
I’m so excited to announce a very special collaboration with one of my favorite social shopping sites, TheFancy.com. Every month I’ll be pulling together the most Oh-So-Coco items on TheFancy.com into one box which will ship to you anywhere in the world. For $39 you’ll get a Coco Rocha X Fancy Box with $80.00+ worth of products hand-picked by yours truly. The first box ships soon, so subscribe HERE right now! Xx Coco
Instagram Tips from Model Coco Rocha - PCMag
By Chandra Steel
Model Coco Rocha has over 350,000 followers on Instagram, where she shares behind-the-scenes shots from her modeling gigs, snaps of her global adventures, and even childhood memories on Throwback Thursdays. And she’s got her fair share of experience with what makes a good photo, considering she’s been on billboards and magazine covers the world over. So, how does she do it? Here she shares her tips for those who feel more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.1) FIND THE BEST SIDE
“If I’m capturing an image of say, the Eiffel Tower, I’m going take at least 10 pictures from varying angles,” she says. “Even in today’s world of instant everything, try to take pride in composing an aesthetically beautiful picture.”2) EDIT, EDIT, EDIT
Ever the professional, Rocha doesn’t settle for just Instagram’s filters to make her shots look good. “Before I post my photos to Instagram I nearly always run them through a whole host of photo-editing apps on my iPhone,” she says. “Some of my favorites are Snapseed, Pictwo, Lenslight, and, of course, Camera+.” She notes that what used to be a splurge is now a steal. “It’s astonishing to me that pictures that used to cost tens of thousands of dollars to create in a studio can now be basically created on a phone with a few $1.99 apps,” she says. If you’re planning on sharing, the extra steps are worth it, according to Rocha. “Your audience will thank you for it,” she says. “Treat every upload as if it was a miniature work of art.”3) DON’T OVERSHARE
But just because creating great photos is nearly free doesn’t mean they should be shared freely. “Your audience is following you for a reason and they clearly do want to hear from you regularly… but not too often,” Rocha advises. “It’s important you don’t overwhelm and overshare because your audience will have no problem clicking ‘unfollow’ if they feel you’re oversaturating their feed.”
TALKING YOUR TECH - USA Today
I recently sat down with USA Today to talk about all things tech + social media.
PCMag: What Do You Carry, Supermodel Coco Rocha?
This week you’ll see the model on the runway at New York Fashion Week and on your TV on “The Face.” But every day, you’ll see her all across social media
By Chandra Steel
Model Coco Rocha is renowned in the fashion industry for her posing but when it comes to her professed love of technology, she’s clearly no poser.
Rocha is the undisputed ruler of social media among models. Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter,Facebook, Google+, Weibo, Pose, The Fancy,Viddy, Cinemagram, and, now, Vine—she’s everywhere. She’s also a gadget girl. So it’s fitting that Rocha, the face of many brands and a magazine cover regular, is clearly no stranger to the camera. She even reached out to the forward-thinking camera company Lytro to become better acquainted with its light-field technology camera after reading about it in a blog post. She later served as a judge for the company’s Light Field Photography Contest alongside tech writers and a photographer.
And just a few weeks back, Google invited her to try out Google Glass. “I was like a kid in a candy store!” Rocha told PCMag. “I think this technology will open up a whole array of possibilities to us that we had never dreamed of.”
Rocha knows something about new possibilities. “When I started modeling 10 years ago, there were no models with social media presence, there was no social media as we have it today,” she says. “Now I don’t think a model can expect to survive without it.”
Click HERE to read more.
GOOGLE+ HANGOUT - The Cast Of The Face.
Did you get a chance yesterday to tune into the live Google+ hangout with me, Naomi, Karolina and Nigel? If not, we have you covered with the whole interview. I seriously think we should do a recap show like this every week, who’s with me?!
If you haven’t checked out Google+, you really should. This feature is amazing.
Xx
Coco
Sass & Bide - The takeover begins!
For the next five days I am taking over all things social media at my favorite Aussie designer Sass & Bide! Follow us using the #cocotakesover hashtag and at sassandbide.com.
Sass & Bide - TAKEOVER
If you know me, you know I love my social media. Turns out my favorite Aussie brand Sass & Bide must have noticed because they’ve asked me to take over their online digital empire for the entire week! Starting tomorrow morning I’ll be running Sass & Bide’s five online channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and, of course, Tumblr. They’ve asked me to go nuts posting my own self-styled images featuring pieces from their most recent collection. You can view the campaign so far and enter the competition to win a look from Sass & Bide at The Take Over!
Xx
Coco
P.S Speaking of social media, have you checked out VINE yet? If not, you’re missing out!
DUJOUR MAGAZINE - COCO ROCHA: MODEL CITIZEN
With her strong beliefs and her social-media savvy, Rocha—on Oxygen’s The Face—is a standout in her fieldBy Lindsay Silberman
The first thing that strikes you about Coco Rocha is, of course, her face. It has those perfect angles, the sharp, sculpted ones that seem to be a prerequisite for becoming a model. But before you can even process the rest of her otherworldly appearance—her flawless ivory complexion, her piercing blue eyes, her slim yet towering frame—you sense there’s a certain depth to her, something a bit more complex.We’ve arranged to chat over lunch at a casual cafe-bakery in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. She arrives early, having taken the train in from New York’s Westchester County. “I honestly don’t mind it,” she says about taking public transportation. “People do it in any other city. It feels normal.” (She and her husband, muralist James Conran, moved there a year ago.)
As she enters the cafe, the 24-year-old doesn’t walk so much as float—a skill she picked up from her years on the runway. And if the people sitting at the tables near us don’t immediately recognize her, they probably whispered over their turkey sandwiches, “She has to be a model.” Today, the massive fur coat, black pants and stilettos she’s wearing are a dead giveaway.
Her first request is surprising: With autumn in the air, she’s in the mood for pumpkin pie today, so would it be OK if she had a slice for lunch? The Canadian-born model has recently wrapped production for Oxygen’s The Face, a new reality show (premiering February 12 at 9PM ET/PT) in which young women compete to become the face of Ulta Beauty. The show bills itself as giving a more realistic depiction of the challenges and demands of modeling than America’s Next Top Model—a series notorious for its jumping-out-of-planes and posing-with-snakes theatrics. Rocha serves as a mentor and coach for a team of four fledgling models, who compete against squads led by supermodels Naomi Campbell and Karolina Kurkova. Every week, each team competes to win an actual job.
It’s an opportunity the thoughtful, soft-spoken Rocha describes as “surreal,” and understandably so. Her career—gracing the cover of Vogue, walking the runways at the Paris, Milan and New York fashion shows, appearing in ad campaigns for Chanel and YSL—is unusual for someone like her. Rocha is a devout Jehovah’s Witness, as is her husband. “My faith is everything,” she declares. Raised by her mother, Rocha has been a Jehovah’s Witness her entire life, but she wasn’t baptized until 2009—the religion requires that individuals be old enough to make their own decisions before committing.
Fashion Forward: How Tech Is Revamping the Runway
Coco Rocha has come a long way since she was spotted by a modeling scout at an Irish dancing competition. Since then, she’s become a fixture on the fashion scene — appearing on the runways for Marc Jacobs, Versace, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Anna Sui, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel and Balenciaga.
More recently, though, she’s become a fixture on the social media scene, positioning herself as one of the most digitally-savvy models of her generation. Hers was one of the first fashion insider blogs in 2008, and Rocha was an early adopter of Twitter, Pose and Instagram. Across all social platforms, Rocha has more than 7 million followers on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tencent Weibo, Sina Weibo and others, earning her street cred as an socially savvy supermodel and role model for anyone looking to learn a thing or two about branding (she runs her accounts herself, and the New York Times recently noted her prowess). Her social savvy explains why Rocha will soon be a coach on Oxygen’s upcoming show, The Face, where she’ll teach aspiring models how to represent a brand and build one’s own.
SEE ALSO: Introducing Mashable’s 2012 Innovation Index
Her social media deftness and high-fashion expertise are also why we thought it appropriate for Coco Rocha to curate the fashion category of Mashable’s Innovation Index. Take a look at her picks below and then cast your vote in Fashion and the 14 other categories.
Very kind and wise words from fashion legend Iman on Refinery29.
Do you think supermodel means the same thing today, as it did when you first became famous?
“No, First of all, I think the only sacred ground that’s left for models is the runway. If the celebrities could figure out a way to get on the runway, they would. But they don’t have the bodies for it. Models have lost everything else. They’ve lost the beauty accounts, the covers. But the thing that’s also a shame is that they don’t have a voice.
“But social media, like especially the way Coco Rocha is doing it — that’s where you can actually create your own content and your own voice. And young models have to stop being treated like hangers for hire and take control of that. Because they can. Trust me, young girls and boys who are out there in their teens who want to be in this industry whether as a designer, a makeup artist, or a stylist, they aren’t looking at Kim Kardashian, they are looking at Karlie Kloss.
“It’s that connection to fans that models don’t have to be given, now. They can have a voice. They can video blog. They can Tweet. They can create. And that’s what they really should do.”
Read more HERE>
COCO’S INSTAGRAMS - March 18th to April 9th, 2012.
- “Don’t cry for me Argentinaaaa!” About to watch EVITA with my buddy Andrew Bevan (Teen Vogue). Ricky Martin is in it - so excited!!
- How cute is this group of Irish dancers doing their best Coco Rocha?! Makes me miss the good old days!
- Behind-the-scenes shot for The Room: http://youtu.be/nIiHz-scfrA
- With my girl Heidi Klum on the set of last week’s Germany’s Next Top Model.
- I’m at an antique store in upstate New York. Sir, do Karlie Kloss & Hillary Rhoda come with the frames?
- Leaving Canada via Porter Airlines on a little island facing downtown Toronto.
- Behind-the-scenes of yesterday’s Canada’s Best Beauty Talent wearing an amazing Zac Posen skirt. Loved this look!
- You know what’s cooler than a million dollars? Facebook buying Instagram for a billion! Congrats to Instagram’s dozen or so employees!
- Loving this Zac Posen Barbie doll. Wait, is that me!?!
