Peixin, also known as Miss Lou when she’s on stage, is a businesswoman, vocalist, and songsmith based in Singapore. She’s often recognized as the singer-songwriter with that vintage artist look.
Over the years, Peixin has managed to carve out a niche for herself by combining her musical talent and love for vintage clothing with her background in business management—and the internet.
“Miss Lou” is more than a stage name. It is a form of branding and the driver behind her successful marketing is social media, especially Instagram, where she posts under the handle @hellomisslou.
With almost 25,000 followers, she’s not quite an Instagram celebrity yet, but the channel serves her well as a means to stay connected with her fans and supporters. Peixin makes it a point to always send a short thank you message to her new Instagram followers as well as respond to comments and private messages. It’s all about taking the extra step to connect with people who appreciate who work, she says.
Another way Peixin uses social media to present herself as an artist is by keeping her Instagram feed raw and real. She does not filter what she posts. Rather than only posting about the happy and positive side of life or flooding her page with photos of her as a musician, Peixin also shares the failures, setbacks, and milestones in her personal life. She believes it is important for her supporters to be part of her journey.
Peixin is also an entrepreneur. She co-founded an events management and consultancy firm, Loudanclear, with her husband Daniel, who is also a musician. It organizes events for corporate entities and social causes.
Harnessing her following on Instagram and Spotify, Peixin now works with a social media promoter and follows a calendar to make sure her posts reach the right audience. In the past, she has also dabbled in influencer marketing to make sponsored posts on her account in the same way product placement happens in TV shows and movies.
Peixin recognizes this as a legitimate form of marketing, but emphasizes that companies engaging an influencer need to do their due diligence to ensure that their follower numbers are real, and that the influencer’s image aligns with the company’s brand and values.
“As someone who manages the social media pages of my businesses, I know how much work and thought goes into creating content and copywriting, so I wouldn’t dismiss what influencers do. There’s also tasteful, high-quality, and creative content versus thoughtless and vapid content, so I’d encourage more people to evaluate each influencer on the quality of their work rather than make generalizitions about all social media influencers based on a select pool,” she says.
Miss Lou’s personal branding and social media reach have helped her cross-promote other activities, such as those under Loudanclear, and another passion project she runs with her best friend, a vintage clothing brand with an Asian focus. It has both an official Instagram page as well as a website that Peixin built herself from scratch.
Peixin revealed that she recently changed her Instagram profile type from a “musician” to “public figure” to market herself holistically—for her music career as well as her corporate endeavors.
Companies that reject technology will eventually be eliminated, Peixin says. She believes it is important for firms to adapt to technological advances to stay relevant in the digital age, though she admits she could live without social media as an individual.
Peixin—or Miss Lou—is all about telling stories and spreading messages of positivity, and technology facilitates those undertakings. At the end of the day, it’s all about being part of new stories and making meaningful connections.
This article is an entry of “People of the Digital Economy,” a series by KrASIA that visits individuals in Southeast Asia whose livelihoods and habits have changed because of the advent of commerce facilitated by the internet.