Masoom Minawala Mehta on why it is important for social media influencers to talk about their failures and setbacks with their audience

• In today’s episode of Influencer Adda, we will be talking to Masoom Minawala Mehta, one of the most acclaimed luxury and fashion influencers in India.
• She started creating content 10 years ago, when Indians only knew Lilly Singh and becoming a fashion blogger was not really heard of.
• Reflecting on her 10-year-long journey, she shares with us her plans of representing India on a global stage, giving back to the community, connecting with the audience and a lot more.

Social media has empowered many creators by giving them an opportunity to showcase their talent and creativity. It has also united different countries, erased borders virtually, and created a global stage. However, not many creators in India have used this platform to expand their presence across the globe. This is where Masoom Minawala Mehta shines. She’s trying to put India on a global map, one post at a time.

Minawala represents the growing community of influencers and lifestyle bloggers in India. She has gradually built her social media empire with a following of 1.1 million fans on Instagram and 51.9k subscribers on YouTube. Her content is all about luxury fashion, lifestyle, beauty tips, and individual styling. She has worked with over 500 brands around the globe like Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Bvlgari, as well as brands like Estée Lauder, Samsung, BMW, Airbnb to mention a few. While she caters to a global audience, she ensures that every piece of her content has a tad desi touch. Earlier this year, Masoom also represented India at the Cannes Film Festival red carpet for the second time.

Talking about how she aims to take India onto a global stage, Masoom says, “Indian fashion has so much to offer. The uniqueness that Indian fashion holds can’t be compared to any other country or industry. The volume of talent that we have in our country is just incredible and I wanna use my platform to elevate that talent and help take it everywhere. The kind of artisanal work that you find there has so much thought, emotion and culture in it. The world could really benefit from Indian fashion. I think Indians understood it way before anyone else that fashion is an expression of yourself and an embodiment of your culture. We have designers creating fashion in relation to climate change now, whereas Indian designers have been doing this for eons. I hope that my platform and content can be a medium for the globe to learn more about how rich Indian fashion and culture is.”

Growing up, Masoom was not at all interested in fashion. She loved sports, reading and art. Her interest in fashion only developed over time. She started blogging about fashion at the age of 21 when Instagram didn’t exist.

Looking back at her journey today, she says, “It was the Facebook era and I was interning at a fashion brand and that’s when I came across fashion blogging. I was so intrigued, really drawn in from the very first second. I didn’t sleep that night. I was up all night creating my blog and it has been a rollercoaster ride since then. It started off as a hobby and I didn’t think it could be a profession, really didn’t think it could be a full-time job either.”

Social media stars often share their life achievements with their audiences. It all looks quite glamorous from afar. Although not many talk about the challenges they face or roadblocks that they have to overcome. Masoom has been trying to normalise that it is okay to fail sometimes. She has spoken about shutting down her business Style Fiesta on Instagram and a few lessons that she learned from this setback.

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We asked her what kept her going. She says, “I love what I do and that has always been my focus: to create the best kind of content and engage with my audience in the best way. And I’ve learnt to learn from my mistakes. Failure needs to be spoken about more on the internet. There’s so much that we glamourise and we highlight our wins, I do so as well. But I feel if we do that, we need to talk about our failure as much.”

When she started working, there weren’t many women in the fashion industry that she could look up to. Now that she has a platform, she wants to use it to uplift other women. So, she is also focusing on highlighting women-led businesses and unique Indian designers through initiatives like Empowher and #SupportIndianDesigners, respectively. With these initiatives, she aims to encourage women to manage their own money. So, she gives out financial advice, business tips, shares her pleasant and unpleasant past experiences.

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A post shared by Masoom Minawala Mehta (@masoomminawala)

She says, “10 years ago, I was ridiculed and criticised. There was a lot of ‘disadvantage’, I was told, because of my gender and I completely disagreed with them. I’ve had investors tell me that ‘we won’t invest in you because you will never be successful, you are not even married yet. Once you find your husband, you will have to give up your career.’ I would love to meet them today and tell them that I am married and my career is doing okay too. My idea behind empowher is to create content I wish was there for me when I started out -- when it was so much easier to give up. When you start something new, you are vulnerable already and society doesn’t believe in you, to add to that. I would have loved to have an encouraging voice at that time. I did have that through my family but I know a lot of women don’t have that support. I hope to support them through my content.”

Before uploading a reel or post, she puts her content through a simple filter: does this inspire, empower, educate or entertain my audience? Masoom encourages budding content creators to follow the same filter and look within to find what’s unique about you and channel that into your content.