The Curly Girl Revolution Shall Be Digitized
With Purpose and Strategy, Social Media Can Broaden a Cultural Movement
Over the last several years, many African American women have made the life-changing decision to accept their natural curly hair. From this, a natural hair movement arose as these women no longer sought products that would turn their crowns of coiled tendrils into the malleable and bone-straight tresses adopted by our mothers and grandmothers. Instead, many of today’s generations of African American women seek products and guidance from other like-minded hair naturalists that will nourish and strengthen their hair as it truly is.
It is no surprise to me that this movement spurred the development of an event planning business called the Curly Girl Collective. Founded by a group of five natural-haired African American women, the collective aims to host events in Brooklyn to show women of color that although the world around them might not share the same opinion, there is beauty in natural hair textures, their various shades of brown skin, and in the culture that accepts them as they are. One of the largest events that they host each year, which draws thousands of people from all over the world, is a festival called Curlfest. There are booths of popular haircare vendors, food trucks, musical performances from well-known artists, and more.
The main goal of any event is to sell tickets, so the goal for Curlfest is definitely the same. Although other avenues of advertising and promotion might be utilized, social media is the fastest way to build the excitement and interest needed to increase ticket sales. Curly Girl Collective maintains a website as well as four different social media accounts, but their Facebook (about 56k followers), Instagram (about 140k followers), and YouTube accounts (about 100k subscribers) are already positioned to provide adequate reach.
Before the event, the Curly Girl Collective’s social media team should shift focus to producing compelling promotional content and advertisements that will help sell tickets. Producing organic content on their Facebook and Instagram will certainly reach the women who follow their social profiles, many of whom are annual attendees. Using paid advertisements to sell festival tickets on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube would allow them to target new audiences of women who have the same appreciation for natural beauty and black culture.
Video provides a unique opportunity to convey the energy and excitement of a live event. Great visuals and catchy audio are a potent combination that drives registration. It also creates engagement opportunities as the video is shared with friends. So, the festival’s organic content and paid promotions should feature short video images of the previous year’s event: crowds of people touring hair and skincare booths, enjoying a musical performance and taking selfies with friends. Advertisements could also include short video testimonials from attendees or famous performers from the previous Curlfest before offering a link to pre-order tickets.
Once ticket sales start rising, content should shift, and the Curly Girl Collective should reveal the event’s hashtag and begin announcing the speakers and musical performers chosen for the current year’s festival. My hashtag recommendation would be #beautybeyondmeasure, which would be included in every message for the festival campaign. To tie the hashtag into the Instagram and Facebook announcements for musical headliners, I would suggest that they record a video snippet of each speaker or performer personally announcing their participation in Curlfest this year. If applicable, the individual could also choose to share the moment that they embraced their natural beauty or explain what makes their natural beauty beyond what society measures it to be.
I would also use the event hashtag to initiate a contest to win free tickets to Curlfest. In the festival ticket contest posts, I would ask applicants to post creative Reels on their Instagram accounts that show why their beauty is beyond measure, tag the Curly Girl Collective and follow their Facebook and Instagram accounts. While this strategy will help someone attend the festival for free, it’s also another method of announcing the event and selling even more tickets.
The viral nature of social media makes it a highly effective tool for connecting customers at all stages of the buying cycle. For those who are still in the consideration phase of the ticket purchasing process, I would post short videos featuring behind the scene footage of the Brooklyn park venue being transformed into a festival wonderland. The video posts would include displaying some of the free products offered at the vendor booths, clips of the bands practicing, and the various food trucks lined up and waiting for the crowd to arrive. While Instagram and Facebook would only serve short video stories, each clip would provide swipe-up links to a full behind the scenes YouTube video.
Speaking of YouTube, I think a platform takeover hosted by a celebrity like Taraji P. Henson or even a well-known YouTube influencer would be a great way to grow Curly Girl’s online community and increase event attendance for next year. The celebrity or influencer could begin by interviewing musicians before the performances begin. They could ask what makes the Curlfest special to them or why they think it’s important to support events like Curlfest. The takeover host could also pose the same questions to a few Curlfest attendees who have come dressed to show off their natural beauty and festival finery.
After the event, it would be of utmost importance to thank everyone who contributed to the success of this year’s Curlfest. I envision a video recap of the event followed by the message of thanks from the Curly Girl founders could be posted to YouTube with portions posted to both their Instagram and Facebook accounts. In the days following the event, event experience and improvement polls could be posted on their Instagram and short questionnaires emailed to each person who purchased a ticket.
All of my recommendations for social media engagement before, during, and after Curlfest could be used in addition to what the Curly Girls are already implementing. I’m certain all of their current strategies contributed to the festival’s success in gathering over 35,000 people each year. I was most impressed by some of their more creative uses of their social platforms like inviting popular social media influencers to vlog the event, introducing polls that request festival fans’ top three must-haves for the event, and even posting festival job opportunities for those interested in working as freelance artists at the event. They even used Instagram stories to effectively provide answers to general questions ticketholders might have before attending the festival (parking availability, subway directions, child entry fees). Since these are all great ways to promote an event using social media, my suggestions should only be used in addition to the Curlfest’s current digital campaign.
An event like this is important to support and promote as it helps determine how we see ourselves despite society’s impossible standards. The Curlfest crowd is filled with mothers, aunts, and daughters that will influence the next generation. Without the collective’s effective use of social media to boost participation, events like this would cease to exist and the positive messages of self-love and acceptance could also vanish.