In the first 14 days of December, there were over 119,000 posts uploaded on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube offering Christmas beauty tips or showcasing make-up selfies. Engagement levels peaked at over 18,000 posts per day, with conversation driven largely by beauty bloggers and vloggers as well as savvy brands.
Advertising on social media is giving brands access to a huge audience this Christmas and its visual nature is perfect for festive beauty products. We’ve analysed what is driving social media success for beauty retailers and have compiled three tips for marketers that want to emulate their social success.
1. Optimise your look
The most engaging posts we found were images focused on playful and festive campaigns tied to new products. For example, Covergirl received engagement for its Star Wars make up gift collection in line with the film release. Not only did the brand jump on a talked about trend, but they used images to increase engagement. Posts with images get 94% more views than those without. Then, the real-time nature of social media apps allows brands to optimise their campaigns based on the best-performing creative.
.@AnneMShearer Your eyes aren't deceiving you– trust the #beautyforce. pic.twitter.com/pzw6f8VPgs
— COVERGIRL (@COVERGIRL) December 18, 2015
2. Delve into keywords
Brands must understand the content that their customers are responding to. For example, the keywords highlighted for Christmas for beauty brands were:
- Gift (2760 mentions)
- #bbloggers (2927 mentions)
- Win (1604 mentions)
- Giveaway (972 mentions)
The fact that “#bbloggers” features alongside “win” and “giveaway” suggests the influence of the blogger community and highlights the response to competitions and giveaways. Using popular hashtags and keywords allows you to reach new audiences who are already interested in what you’re selling and can indicate the marketing activities and publishers you should be partnering with.
3. Use data to beautify campaign targeting
Instagram provides brands with a wealth of data that goes beyond wide demographics to include actions that more accurately inform intent, such as purchase behaviour and device usage. Beauty brands should analyse this data and use it to create and deliver personalised messages. For example, why not reward a loyal customer who has posted that they’d like your product for Christmas with a personalised offer for it?
With Twitter testing a feature to show advertisements to people who read tweets without logging in and Instagram adding 30-second video ads to its features, social is the advertising channel to watch in 2016.
