Coco Rocha: Social media boosted my career

The 24-year-old model Coco Rocha says thanks to the Internet and social media her modelling career got a massive boost and she is now a 'brand'.

Coco has nearly 500,000 followers on Twitter and just under a million followers on Google+ and believes her strong fan base online has helped her book more work.

She said: "For decades, models were seen and not heard. I have an audience of eight million across my platforms - it's made me think carefully about what I stand for. I have this loud voice, which means I better have something worthwhile to say. Ultimately, it's helped establish me as a brand, not just a face. I often find that companies now want to hire me because of who I am as well as how I look."

The Canadian model recently swapped high fashion for high street, fronting the latest Sixties-themed campaign for Banana Republic and feels it's more acceptable to cross over between the two areas of fashion.

She explained to Stylist magazine: "It used to be that models couldn't always cross over from high fashion to high street and vice versa, but even in the 10 years I've been modelling, the industry has changed.

"We live in a great time for fashion. It's opening up to the world and pulling away from being an elitist members-only club. Banana Republic was at the forefront of bringing that look of globe trotting luxury to the shopper on the high street."