Dubai: Arab fashionistas who transformed their passion for fashion to business empires using social media platforms shared their experience at the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit on Wednesday.

During the session titled ‘Rise of a fashion influencers across social networks’, the social media influencers spoke about how they became attractive names that are sought out by brands for promotion and event appearances.

Make-up artist Huda Kattan, one of the featured bloggers in the session, is a well-known brand in the region under the name ‘Huda Beauty’ (her YouTube username), and has 3.5 million Instagram followers and 400,000 YouTube subscribers.

Huda now has a line of eyelashes and fake nails available in the international cosmetic store Sephora, which she promotes on her highly active social media accounts.

“I started blogging with the intention of starting a business but I also did it because I wanted to help girls in the region who wanted to do their makeup tutorials. Content creation is a very important aspect of being a blogger. I spend every Saturday with my team thinking of ideas and content for the rest of the week to put up on social media platforms.”

She rarely accepts brand deals and sponsorship because she is more focused on putting her efforts and time in growing her own brand, which she has recently launched in Dubai.

Sara Al Madani, Emirati fashion designer and founder of Rouge Couture, who has over 70,000 followers on instagram, also does not accept brand sponsorships easily.

“I do not accept brand sponsorship unless I try their products for at least six months. I am now the ambassador of Nivea in the Middle East. When they approached me, I asked them first what product it was and decided to go along with it because I was already using the product for three years.”

Sara who started her business by opening a store featuring her own designs at the age of 15, says she is very cautious about the products she promotes. It takes just one sponsorship of a product that does not work to lose the trust of the followers she took years to build.

She believes the best self-promotion strategy on social media is making your followers feel important. She said she answers every single question by her followers’ questions on social media. “If I have 300 questions, you will get 300 answers.”

Fashion blogger and designer Ascia, who has 1.3 million followers on Instagram, another speaker at the session, said social media is her full-time job.

“I did not have any business intentions when I started my blog. It started out of frustration because I would see all these beautiful bloggers, but I could not wear any of their clothes because they were revealing and did not represent me and my culture,” she said.

Ascia, who is half-American and half-Kuwaiti, said she initially started her blog, the Hybrids, to make a positive social change in the region by promoting fashion suitable for veiled women in the region.

Social media is her full-time job, where she creates 80 per cent of her content and the remaining are sponsored products.

“I won’t promote any products unless I try them out and I actually like them,” she said.