If you are like me I am sure you have thought about quitting school and/or your day job to capitalize on the new influencer movement. With some of the most popular YouTubers making around $300,000 per video and over $150,000 per post on Instagram; why wouldn’t you become an influencer?
Influencers are an exciting topic and I recommend you read The New Face of Beauty to learn more about some of the benefits related to being one. After you read that and realize how great it is to be an influencer come back to this post, where I examine the beauty industry’s most utilized social media platforms.
So now you want to be an influencer specifically a beauty influencer because you are reading a beauty blog. One of the first questions you should ask yourself is, “where do I post to get the most bang for my buck?” With several different media platforms on the internet including, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, Google, a brand website, etc. where is the best place to get started?
Maybe you are just one person and posting on so many platforms is too much of a stretch. I understand that as a person with only four social media platforms including this website, I find it hard to keep up with everything as a one-woman show. Let us examine our quality over quantity option. Please do not get me wrong if you can do it all, do it! Maybe just take this post as advice as to where to do it the most.
With more and more beauty brands discovering the power of social media, Instagram looks to be the best visual platform to garner consumer engagement and to increase brand loyalty. With nearly every major beauty brand using the platform in 2016. Instagram is pushing engagement for the beauty industry. With over 800 million users, Instagram is the perfect place for beauty enthusiasts to quickly take advantage of the opportunities that come with a higher follower count.
Now, I am sure you are thinking Instagram is too good to be true. With mega companies like Chanel Official and MAC Cosmetics with a combined follower count of over 50 million, how do we get a piece of that pie? To that I say, Rome was not built in a day! Chanel and MAC were solidified many years before social media had even been thought of and to compare yourself to industry giants may not be the best strategy. Not to mention the math; 50 million is only 6.25 percent of the possible 800 million users so there is quite a bit of pie left.
Another platform you should consider is YouTube. According to Statista, “In June 2016, beauty-related content generated more than 5 billion views per month on YouTube alone.” If you consider yourself a charismatic person and have a desire to get into video editing, then this platform may be your best bet. Like many, my favorite beauty content to watch is a makeup tutorial. I think a good makeup tutorial offers a viewer an opportunity to not just engage but to learn. Over the years I have learned how to do just about everything beauty related. In a world where you hear about more and more people being self-taught, YouTube tutorials could be a profitable niche.
Take your pick because both platforms do offer unique custom opportunities. My advice is to post on Instagram and YouTube; then between the two use a social media monitoring website like Meltwater and, as recommended by Dr. Regina Luttrell, a customized URL address to figure out where to post the most for your audience.
Janet Diane White 