This week, I had a chance to speak with Brit McCorquodale, Head of Marketing and Communications, and Christina Grammenos, General Manager, of Tribe Dynamics, an industry leader in measuring social influencer engagement, particularly in beauty.

Tribe Dynamics gauges how consumers respond to brands on social media by measuring earned media value, or EMV. The company measures consumer engagement by analyzing tens of thousands of influencers’ social media postings and discovers which brands are being talked about the most.

Social media influencer marketing is the largest shift we have seen in the beauty industry in terms of driving growth. The industry is using the power of influencers more effectively than any other industry is, and McCorquodale estimated that it is at least three–five years ahead of other industries on this front. The cost of creating and publishing a social media message is almost zero today, and the amount of content being created is increasing exponentially.

Survey and business data provide evidence of the increased power of social media influencers. The NPD Group conducted a survey regarding 2016 prestige makeup launches, and found that influencer collaborations brought in an average of two times the dollar volume of traditional celebrity collaborations in the first month postlaunch. And NPD’s Makeup In-Depth Consumer Report 2016 highlighted that 92% of makeup users get information on beauty products from influencers’ YouTube videos. Beauty brand Tarte saw strong results after partnering with 12 social media influencers, and doubled its sales expectations for its Amazonian Clay Matte Palette, according to Women’s Wear Daily.

NYX and Becca: Winning at Social Influencing

There are few barriers to entry for new brands that want to launch now. Small brands can use influencer marketing to compete with big brands because the consumer environment is rewarding great products and not just massive ad campaigns. NYX and Becca are two examples of cosmetics companies that have used social influencer engagement to grow into multimillion-dollar brands.

NYX has grown organically through unpaid social media influencer engagement. It now ranks third among cosmetics companies in social engagement, with an EMV of more than $50 million. From February 2016 through February 2017, the company saw its social media engagement grow by 97%. Every month, NYX sends customers new products to try, and customers post an incredible amount of content about the products on social media, detailing what they like and how to use the products as well as application techniques. Through this authentic and natural content creation vehicle, NYX is building its audience over time.

McCorquodale said that Becca has seen a huge impact from content created by a single social media influencer, YouTuber Jaclyn Hill. Hill was a vlogger who just happened to love, use and talk about Becca products on her YouTube channel, and Becca’s early success was highly connected to her engagement with the brand. The launch of Becca’s Champagne Pop Collection helped Sephora.com hit a single-day sales record: Champagne Pop sold 25,000 units in its first 20 minutes online in July 2015. Becca later collaborated with Hill to create an entire line of beauty products. The company was acquired by Estée Lauder for more than $200 million in October 2016. Now, Becca and similar brands actively engage with hundreds to thousands of influencers, and the most successful brands are building a wide, diverse community of influencers.

Source: forbes.com