With a high proportion of consumers sharing and spending on social media, beauty brands have had a better time to promote their products. Let’s have a look at how Bobbi Brown, Chanel, NARS and Benefit do it…
Bobbi Brown
The U.S company, Bobbi Brown, has maintained a steadfast image towards selling natural makeup looks and an all-American lifestyle.
While these are up-market products, at an high end price; the brand’s ethos is good-natured and wholesome—offering a more approachable route into purchase.
Unlike other popular beauty names (and also ones within the Estée Lauder umbrella), Bobbi Brown have favoured using models rather than celebrities as ambassadors, which has enhanced the brand identity as products for everyone.
Fueling the Buying Process by Putting the Customer First
Bobbi Brown uses their platforms to showcase new products with eye-catching visuals, links to video tutorials, and give fans behind the scenes previews e.g. prepping A-listers before the red carpet.
On Facebook, there’s a healthy interaction with fans. They ask questions about application, how to achieve a certain look, where to buy products, or alternatives when their favourites are discontinued.
Customer Service teams are quick to reply, offering alternative sources of communication such Live Chat with an Artist or useful email addresses.
All effective in enhancing the brand’s likeability…
Using Personality to Empower and Entice Fans
As the company creator and namesake, it goes without saying that Bobbi herself, is a large part of the brand’s ethos.
She’s present throughout the content, and her voice brings a real warmth.
To boot, the main part of having a figurehead means there’s a real person for the audience to identify with.
The Everything Bobbi blog keeps fans in the know about her lifestyle and builds a more complete brand environment. She shares her holiday snaps, latest creations from the kitchen and of course, make-up tips.
Articals are often kept in the first person to maximise engagement.
Bobbi Brown sells makeup to a range of ages and ethnicities, but above all they champion beauty coming from within.
Typical Bobbi campaigns include bold tag-lines like “Pretty Powerful” and the more recent, “Be Who You Are”. This focuses fans’ attention on a positive message, while also driving conversions.
Using Video to Increase Conversions
Beauty has an advantage over other industries by being able to utilise the different media that comes with social.
And Bobbi Brown uses this to full effect. On YouTube, they’ve created a series of tutorials for makeup; and on Instagram they share behind-the-scene snaps of the brand’s work for runways shows, like Paris Fashion Week.
Key Takeaway: Video has become such a powerful tool for selling on social, it’s folly not to make the most of it. Communicating with fans through tutorials gives Bobbi Brown a foundation, not only to engage with potential customers but to drive traffic as well.
Chanel
As one of the world’s leading luxury brands, Chanel takes an individual approach to social media.
The antithesis of what social marketers preach about “how to engage an audience”, this brand follows no one. Nor do they need to! Simply, because it’s Chanel, everyone follows them…
In remaining aloof, they they maintain their exclusivity. Even though they were late in the day to join social media—they’ve kept the same approach on each platform.
Their blog, Chanel News, is a high-end editorial of runway shows, celebrity interviews and more. All content is Chanel-focused – they don’t veer outside of their world, and fans are very happy for it to remain that way.
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Using Your Reputation to Grow Followers
As a heritage brand, Chanel don’t have any trouble amassing followers.
Only joining Instagram in mid October 2014—to coincide with the launch of their latest short film— they amassed nearly 1.8 followers overnight. And still to this day, following no-one. Speaks volumes about their reputation doesn’t it?
Chanel doesn’t have separate country pages as is customary amongst most brands, but one global page for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Equally, they don’t separate their beauty from their fashion—everything remains part of the Chanel sphere.
While Chanel incorporates fans into their universe, there’s also a barrier between fans and the brand. By maintaining this air of mystery and unattainability, there’s always something to be sought after.
Aspirational Media to Convert Sales
Chanel often use celebrity ambassadors and supermodels to promote their products, continuing their high-end image.
Instead of using makeup tips and product advice to fuel sales, they use the allure of the “finished look” to entice customers.
Buying into Chanel is a promise of buying to a world of luxury: the kudos of having the name in your makeup bag and looking as polished as the models that wear it.
And this is Chanel’s aim. To make the customer feel like their buying into a desirable lifestyle.
Key Takeaway: We can’t all profit from a reputation like Chanel’s… However, their visuals represent the fulfillment process and not the buying process, which is a useful question to ask. Where do you want to transport your customers on social? Tempting them to the higher platform of owning the product, or enjoying being part of the community?
NARS
The NARS brand is modern and independent, and their voice certainly reflects that. The Twitter account—the NARSisst, “a beauty-obsessed girl living her dream, working at NARS Cosmetics HQ in NYC”—has a distinctive tone which personalises the brand.
Post by NARS Cosmetics.
Like Bobbi Brown, NARS uses a variety of media on social. Their Twitter videos synch with their YouTube account; as soon as one video has finished it auto-plays the rest, for longer engagement.
Using Snapchat to Unveil New Products
Way back (socially speaking) in 2013, NARS used the now omnipresent Snapchat to reveal their latest Guy Bourdin collection.
Announcing via Twitter that they’d be using the application the following day to reveal a surprise, they drove fans in their thousands to join them on Snapchat.
Utilising the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mechanism of the application, not only did NARS maintain a level of exclusivity around the brand, they also gained a large number of new followers on a different network.
You Might Like: How Brands use Snapchat for Marketing
How to Use Facebook Apps to Promote Product without Giveaways
The pressure for brands to host contests / competitions on Facebook in the hopes of garnering new fans, or using paid-for-advertising has become commonplace.
In 2013, NARS managed to promote a collection by avoiding either of these routes.
By creating a Facebook app exclusively for their new Andy Warhol collection, they offered fans the chance to recreate their Facebook profile page in the style of the Warhol / NARS creative.
The number of downloads wasn’t massively high but the level of engagement was. The app generated over 151 million media impressions amongst beauty bloggers and press, a figure that would have cost NARS between $35,000 to $45,000 to generate the same number of impressions using Facebook ads.
Read Also: How to Build a Facebook App in 5 Minutes
Pinterest can Widen Your Community Reach and Augment Sales
With nearly 30,000 followers, NARS uses Pinterest to engage its fans with myriad images of beauty looks, as well as several product placements.
In terms of generating sales via Pinterest, the brand has implemented other schemes including a collaboration with three popular users of the platform to offer fans the chance to buy their latest Satin Lip Pencil.
The three pinners created their own boards relating to the shades of the new product and for a week before the full release of the collection, customers could buy the product from certain images pinned.
By using Pinterest ‘celebrities’ with a combined follower total of 15 million, they enormously widened their reach, rather than asking users to guest blog on their pages—a popular tactic of other brands.
Key Takeaway: Think outside the box. Take another look at the age ranges of your fans and see which networks they’re using. Don’t be afraid to test out new ways of reaching a potentially untapped audience.
Benefit
If a beauty brand were a real person, Benefit would fill the roll of ‘the girly girl’. She’s fun, pink-obsessed, and loves her makeup.
In fact, their brand voice is so distinctive, I’ll wager you have a visual in your head when the name is mentioned. Femininity, retro design, and tongue-in-cheek humour are three things commonly identified with the brand.
Using Instagram to Cultivate Your Fan Base
While others prefer Facebook or Twitter to generate fan likes and follows, this brand use Instagram to immerse fans into a world of its own.
As displayed on their Instagram page—Laughter is the best cosmetic!—, Benefit continuoulsy use humour to connect with their audience. They have an easy rapport with fans and treat them like childhood friends.
Read Also: How to Get More Followers on Instagram
This allows them to engage them in multiple ways—calling them to participate in contests and share their makeup looks within the community. Encouraging users to post selfies with the #Benefit hashtag, with the incentive of reposting them. Easy as pie.
One of their most successful Instagram campaigns was based around the They’re Real mascara. Nearly 12,000 fans posted photos with the #realsies hashtag—a huge amount of user engagement and product promotion.
While they generally keep content makeup-centric, their tone is infused into each of their posts: whether they’re quotes about the weekend, how to get flawless skin or shots of their stores.
Maintain Your Voice Throughout All Channels
One thing Benefit do consistently is apply the brand identity to every inch of their presence on social. From the design, colour scheme and font, everything is “Benefit”. Flowery and delightful.
Their blog ‘Friends with Benefit‘ is a chatty and witty roll of new products, collaborations and giveaways. On key with their branding, and always about the beauty.
Keeping a consistent voice gives Benefit a foundation of communication with fans. They target the ideal audience for the brand, and make each customer feel like they have something in common.
Key Takeaway: Give users what they want. If your fans enjoy contests and social sharing, reward them with giveaways. They’ll thank you in return!
Other brands can learn from the innovation and creativity the beauty industry brings to social media. From creating a full and encompassing brand image, to using different media options to drive sales, there are lots of ways you can push the envelope with social!
References: News Cred
What tips do you have for best practice on social? Comment below!
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