Vanessa Chen is known for her seamless TikTok videos showcasing different outfits. Her ability to combine the latest fashion trends with her personal taste paved the way for her success online. Today, she shares her story of how she started as a content creator and what her fans can expect from her in the future. 

About Vanessa Chen

Originally from New Hampshire, Vanessa Chen has made a mark on the content creation sphere as a fashion influencer. She uses vivacious.honey as her social media handle and currently has 2.4 million followers on TikTok, 871,000 followers on Instagram, and 1.36 million subscribers on YouTube. 

According to Vanessa, her career as a content creator started during the quarantine. Being stuck at home all the time gave her the opportunity to get creative. 

She adds, “I had a ton of free time, and so I thought to myself, why not start making fashion videos just for fun.” Everything snowballed for Vanessa after that. 

Vanessa’s Hack for Keeping up With the Latest Fashion Trends and Styles

Vanessa’s secret for creating fashion content despite ever-changing fashion trends is adding her own twist to the things she sees online. 

She explains, “I try really hard not to focus too much on things that are super trendy and in vogue at the moment and just stick with what I like and what works for me and my personal style.”

How Vanessa Stays Active on Various Social Media Platforms

As of the moment, Vanessa is most active on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And when asked how she posts content and remains active across different platforms, she has this to say:

“I post the same content for all my platforms as it helps me stay up-to-date and keep everything in order. I’m very organized, so it’s easier to post at the same time and post the same content.” 

She also mentions how the cross-posting feature on social media helped her post content online. This allows her to stay active on different platforms without spending more time or effort posting. 

Creative Process

Vanessa is like many of us — she admits to coming up with ideas in the middle of the night and then scribbling notes and keywords on her phone. Because of this, she’s guilty of having a notes app that looks like a scrambled mess. 

Whenever she feels stuck or sees herself having a creative roadblock, Vanessa relies on her old content and thinks about how she can revamp or recycle it. She explains, “I like to look at my old stuff and make it new and fresh again.”

Engagement with Audience 

Vanessa loves her audience and incorporates their feedback in her content creation process. Even with thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram and millions of subscribers on YouTube, Vanessa exerts time and effort to engage with her audience, whether it’s through the comment section or DMs.

When IG TV was still a thing, she did a series and asked her audience to send her fashion-related questions.

“I called it the Style Snag series, and basically every episode, I would ask my followers specific questions that they had related to fashion. Whether it’s like, Vanessa, how would I style this? Or what should I wear to this event? I would dive into a handful of those questions directly given by the audience.” 

Recently, she decided to revamp the series on YouTube. 

Collabs with Brands

When it comes to collabs, Vanessa relies on her management team, Proud Management. Her team handles the vast majority of inbound messages she receives about collabs. 

Of all the collabs Vanessa had, the one with Coach is her favorite. She explains why:

“I would say one of my favorites all around was working with Coach. Not only did I get almost full creative control — which I really appreciate — but it’s always been a dream brand of mine to work with.”

Vanessa admits having different favorites for different reasons: the amount of creative freedom she gets and the dream brands she aspires to work with. When it comes to Coach, it was “the best of both worlds” for her. 

What kind of content have you created for Coach?

Vanessa created a video for Coach where clothing pieces kind of fly in and then stick to her body. For Vanessa, creating the video was cool but challenging in a technical sense.  

How She Differentiates Herself From Other Content Creators

Vanessa knows that the fashion space has become a saturated market at this point. She tries to differentiate herself by using trends as her references, not entirely copying them. She also avoids getting too attached to certain ideas that other people have done. 

“I try not to focus too much on trends or even transitions that are trending. If I see something on my For You Page, I watch it once and try to bring my own perspective. I think having that freshness is really important to distinguish myself.”

Balancing Creativity and Commercial Success

Although Vanessa creates and posts branded and organic content, she focuses on the latter.

She explains, “I feel for my audience, it’s important not to feed them advertisements all the time. It’s definitely a difficult line to walk sometimes because you want to support yourself as a content creator and earn an income. But at the same time, you don’t want to sell yourself.”

To have authenticity, Vanessa tries to limit herself, especially during busy seasons. For instance, she only does two sponsored posts a week, and then the rest of her posts are organic content. 

Challenges as a Content Creator

The biggest challenge Vanessa had as a content creator was dealing with negative feedback. She considers herself very sensitive and cares a lot about other people’s thoughts. It was tough for her to realize that people online judge content creators after seeing their 15-second video clips. 

Favorite Viral Video

One video that made Vanessa the happiest and made her feel that “she made it” was the one where she did outfit transitions as she walked on a portable treadmill. The video was all about wearing a dress of each color of the rainbow, and as she was walking, the dresses changed. 

As of this writing, the video has earned over 10M views across platforms.

Aside from the engagement the video has, Vanessa considers that video as her most successful because of the challenge that went into making it. She admits, “It was really challenging to get it perfectly seamless, so you couldn’t tell when the video changed into the next outfit.”

How She Measures Success

Vanessa measures her success as a content creator in two ways: the analytical side and how much the video challenged her. 

“First is from numbers: how well did the video do, how much engagement it received from my audience, how many shares, likes, and comments. This is the analytical side. But my favorite video and the one I found most successful comes down to how much it challenged me.”

Vanessa’s Advice on Aspiring Fashion Influencers

Vanessa recognizes viral videos can catapult someone to online fame, but it’s not enough to carve a name online. She believes that consistency is still key.

“Keep going every single day; it truly is a constant grind. Viral moments are great, they’re huge boosters, but you can’t just set it and forget it. You have to keep going every single day.”

Vanessa also encourages aspiring fashion influencers to be consistent with their content,as short-form content on social media has become more fast-paced.

What’s Next for Vanessa?

There’s a lot going on for Vanessa in 2023 and 2024, both in her personal and professional life. For one, she’s marrying her long-time beau, Jason Moynihan. They met in August 2019, and Jason popped the question in November 2022.

The second big thing for Vanessa is the launch of her own fashion line. Showing her excitement, she shares, “Fingers crossed that by 2024, it’s up and running.”

Her Expectations on the Content Creation Space

In the next couple of years, Vanessa wants to see more transparency. She explains that there is a lot not said about platforms and how algorithms work. 

“I think if platforms were more transparent on how the algorithms work and how videos are pushed, it would encourage more people to jump on the platforms and try to become a creator.”