Beauty blogger secrets: what marketers should take in mind before their digital campaign

I recently came through a post regarding 'Top Digital Marketing Mistakes in the Beauty Industry' by Sukesh Jakharia. It pointed out several fatal mistakes marketer should avoid, which I heartly agree, such as lacking a complete brand strategy, forgetting about men, as well as not connecting your digital platforms.

However, the solutions were nowhere to be found - marketers are accused of there mistakes but not provided with actionables.

In the meantime, many individuals who started their beauty blogger as amateurs, had made remarkable success. Not to mention the famous Temptalia, whose website contains thousands of swatches, reviews, comparisons and attract millions of visitors, even a graduate student at University College London who call herself 'SEPTEMBER the life recorder' has attracted 40K enthusiastic followers in two months on the Chinese microblog Weibo. And the number is much greater than many beauty brands including Elizabeth Arden.

A few secrets that those beauty bloggers utilized that digital marketers might find useful:

1. 'Retweet Lottery'

The prize could be as tiny as a lipstick or an eyeshadow platte - regardless of however costless it might seem, it is one efficient way to conduct market test and increase followers. The number of retweets for lottery of a specific item could be insights on how popular the item is in the market, and as consumers have to become followers first to enter the lottery, the beauty blogger/ the brand account could attract users that actually consider making future purchase. As far as I'm concerned, a recent retweet lottery with a Chanel limited edition blush (value ~80USD) has attracted 20,000 eager users to retweet.

2. Engage the Men

Some smart moves are surveys conducted by bloggers such as - "ask your BF/BFF what's the most flattering eyeshadow color on you". Surprisingly while the question is targeted at female users to answer, many males had been bold and brave to contribute opinions. Traditionally straight men had been portrayed as '' silly dude unable to tell between no-makeup and expertly-done-heavy-makeup", but the opinion of men could matter as much. In fact, a SUQQU eyeshadow palette named SAKURAHABA had been constantly sold out for six months because it was depicted as 'THE first date eyeshadow' in a blogger survey.

THE first date eyeshadow that made women crazy

3. Talk Beauty and BEYOND Beauty.

A close friend of mine, and also a beauty enthusiast and Sephora VIBR, followed almost every popular beauty bloggers. However, whose posts does she read?

Only those bloggers she likes and feels like a real person, who live, eat, talk, date, and occasionally feel upset.

It is no time that beauty products are hidden in counters and available for VIP only - it is time that they bring along their personality with them when communication with digital audience. It does not imply that a bottle of YSL nail laquer should has a boyfriend named Ken, but rather bringing genuine experience instead of superficial descriptions of movie stars and supermodels.


4. Let Followers Interact with Each Other.

I always find users' comment more interesting than beauty posts themselves - there are green hands to be educated, experienced beauty assistant volunteer to share, eager full time moms seeking friends to hang out, and high school teens anxious to find the perfect eyeliner for a night out. That's the magic of beauty bloggers that marketers should catch. That great contents could be generated by followers, and the content team would never have to stay awake for the new idea.