It’s no surprise that the beauty industry has largely shifted to digital marketing. More specifically, the industry’s use of social media influencers as a way of marketing their products to the mainstream population.
Meltwater, a media monitoring company, has made a report on social media activity in relation to certain beauty products. They studied Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia with a timeframe of July to December 2018. Let’s look at their findings.
Why influencers?
To quote the Meltwater report, “No other industry has embraced influencer marketing as enthusiastically as the beauty industry.” You’ll find that influencers are game changers within the beauty industry.
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Most of the time, companies would opt to utilize influencers because it also means free or cheaper advertising. Some startup beauty gurus share their products with the audience even without pay. Others would settle for freebies as payment which also gets advertised in the end.
Aside from lesser ad costs, why go for the influencers? According to Meltwater, it’s due to the rise of mobile devices. Today, anybody could have access to online content with just a tap on their screens. A lot of people are also constantly checking their social media. This means that there’s a higher possibility of seeing an influencer on their feed compared to the typical makeup catalogs.
It adds that influencers give us an authentic feel to beauty products since they actually test the product out. While celebrities still have impact when it comes to selling, beauty influencers have an organic reach to their viewers and engage with them which makes them more effective.
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There is just a different feel to seeing a big celebrity endorsing makeup, to someone who is just about the same age or status as you. They also show how they actually do their makeup which is a huge plus to those who want to learn.
The numbers don’t lie too. Meltwater cites Celebrity Intelligence’s own study to give us a grasp of how much consumers rely on beauty influencers. They found that 80% of the respondents see influencers as pivotal in shaping opinions and buying decisions of consumers. Meltwater also found that 83% believe influencers are vital in effecting what the next beauty trend would be for a millenial consumer.
Social Media
Social media doesn’t only just bring in more customers to the industry, but it also became an avenue for influencers to build up a career. According to the report, the social media platform with the highest number of influencers is Instagram in all four countries with an average of 79.2%. Twitter and YouTube make up the rest of the numbers.
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Influencers like Nikkie Tutorials, James Charles, and Jeffrey Star amass about $30,000 per sponsored Instagram post. These same three influencers’ yearly salary from YouTube estimates a range of $700K-$6M.
It’s really overwhelming to see how much digital marketing is taking over everywhere, like the beauty industry. Make sure to always be updated on the latest trends and adapt.
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by Saskia Fairfull.
Sources: Tarandip Kaur (Meltwater) / Meltwater Insights
