EXPOSED! How To Go Evergreen.

A Manual to Making Your Story Timeless

As a public relations professional, I took notes, but as a person, I internalized his message. The presentation was about storytelling and how to craft the perfect content. The message was “why.”  It is a very humbling question to ask yourself why you do what you do.  

So, there I was intrigued; then out of nowhere, Jim Olson, founder, and president of Hangar 6 Strategic Storytelling mentioned evergreen content. This is just a term for stories that are “always relevant.” I don’t know about you, but in the past, I had always been taught to craft a very personal story that speaks to the emotions of another person. Of course, the concept of evergreen content blew my mind, so to make sure I fully grasped the term, I related it back to beauty. 

Beauty. What does that word mean to you? What comes to mind? Is it your partner, the Eiffel Tower, your dog, a supermodel, or maybe it’s your mom. Whatever beauty means to you and whoever you thought of, like me you should realize that you just created evergreen content. 

For a moment I want you to imagine that you own a multi-million dollar cosmetics company; diversity is your slogan and innovation is your bread and butter. How do you make that last? How do your company and its ideas remain relevant? The answer is, you get very comfortable with creating evergreen materials. 

Of course, in the digital age, we’re living in, creating material that is “timeless” seems almost impossible. With social media platforms become a breeding ground for the latest trend of “outrage culture,” how does one break through the chaos and remain relevant with an everlasting story? In my opinion, the answer is research. Yes, I know it sounds both simple and really inconvenient, but I promise if you ask most public relations professionals, marketers, or advertisers what they do before implementing any campaign, approach media, post a billboard, etc. they’ll say research.

Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash

 I just so happened to be reading Forbes the other day, with the hope of reading something inspiring, and I found this quote: “The common facts of today are the products of yesterday’s research,” said Duncan MacDonald. Nowadays we’re so lucky to have access to some amazing research tools, no longer do we have to search for a book on the shelf, the inconvenience related to research shrinks every day. 

I can’t recommend enough that everyone knows how to use Google or Bing.  I’m not saying that these search engines have all the answers, but if you ask the right questions they’ll get you close. Evergreen stories don’t just happen. They take a deeper level of thinking, which I’m sure if you’re reading this you’re already thinking deeper than the ocean. 

Some of the things I suggest you look for to get started are why you and other people care, now or in the future; and what is the best way to get your point across. Answering questions like these take your story from talking about the latest lip gloss that will soon be replaced by the newest lip gloss, to talking about the latest lip gloss and how it’s reshaping the beauty industry. Which one would you rather read?

So, the next time you’re thinking of writing a timeless evergreen story, take a moment to do your research. Because if you don’t know what you’re talking about and why it matters, how can you expect anyone else to? 

Shh! I’m Trying to Boost My Voice

Your guide to strategic brand analytics in the digital age

Have you ever thought about breaking away from the crowd? Yes? Great! This post offers an in-depth summary of how you can raise your voice higher than most people online.

What is the key to standing out?

Digital analytics may be one of the best-kept secrets in the marketing, advertising, and public relations industries. The reason for the secrecy, well,  if everyone knew the power of data and how to interpret it, there would be no need to outsource. You’re in luck! This post has broken the complicated subject of digital brand analytics and market share into three easy to digest parts.

Brand, what does that mean to you? Some people may think of Nike, MAC Cosmetics, Target, Chanel, Starbucks, etc. Those are all great corporations and brands with several things in common, one being the ability to effectively analyze content and engagement.

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Of course, you are an individual and small-business that may not have the available resources like those of Nike or similar companies. To be successful, you don’t need them. Take this quote from Chuck Hemann and Ken Burbary in Making Sense of Consumer Data in a Digital World: Digital Marketing Analytics, “to stay consistently relevant, you must have your finger on the pulse of your digital brand health.”

With that said, here is the first step you should take when growing your brand:

Brand share begins with measuring what category and audience your brand reaches and occupies. The easiest way to think about brand share is to break it down into three equally important parts:

1. What people say – Also known as share of voice (SOV), is easily broken down as: conversations about your brand / total conversations in your brand category. For example, take all the conversations happening about Nike, then divide those conversations specifically about Nike, by all the conversations happening in the apparel category.
2. What people do – More commonly known as share of search (SOS), equals searches about your brand/total searches in your brand category. This may be self-explanatory, and just refers to how many people are searching for your brand compared to your competitors.
3. Who’s your audience – Or share of audience (SOA) is equal to the total audience for your brand / total audience per competitor within a category. This part is a little more complex and should be broken down. Start with focusing on one platform like Facebook, then move onto your other platforms collecting the total sum. After you are done calculating the total of your own audience, do the same for your competitors. By plugging in your total audience with that of one of your competitors, you will then discover your SOA.

If you can remember these three parts, then you’re well on your way to understanding market share, solidifying your brand, and having a competitive advantage over your competition.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Tom Peters in Fast Company, “all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”

MANEATER: A Metallic Matte Poem

she feels the ruby red flush across her lips

for in these moments, her quest remains motionless

she has conquered all

for the heat of the poison demands her attention

she puckers

for the sun has finally broken the facade

she is no longer alone 

for a new day has come.

 

*This poem was inspired by the women who dare to wear Maneater, an Always on Matte Liquid Lipstick by Smashbox Cosmetics.

Why aren’t you into makeup? It was made for you.

I am really excited about this week’s topic. I want to discuss what the beauty industry does behind the scenes in preparation for a new product launch. I will begin with the process of analyzing sentiment.

In case you have been living under a rock, makeup is the brand-new buzz word. With four out of five women opting to cover their natural freckles or an unexpected breakout with makeup, how could the industry be considered so controversial?

It is 2018! With megastars like Alicia Keys standing for natural beauty and the #NoMakeup movement, the industry is facing a “trial by Twitter.” Of course, to an industry that is projected to be valued at over $800 billion in the next five years, criticism is just a part of the territory. To me, the beauty industry is like the best lip plumper in the market, thriving.

The “no-makeup makeup” is a huge trend and has overtaken the original stance of #NoMakeup. I agree this is somewhat disheartening; what was a very powerful movement has been buried under CC cream and ultra-lightweight foundation. What most people don’t know, is just about every campaign was carefully crafted to adhere to the response of the last one.  Meaning, nearly everything from foundation to nail-polish was planned around the latest trends.

What happens after all this sentiment data has been collected? If the company wants to be successful, it should continue by doing more research. According to Forbes, the first four out of 17 steps anyone should take before launching a product, are centered around having an intimate understanding of your audience. Social listening should be utilized, and with the help of platforms like Meltwater and Twitter, it is easier than ever.

For example, here is one of my recent tweets to MAC Cosmetics:

Comment from MAC Cosmetics to Janet Diane White

I am sure the company deals with hundreds of mentions every day and probably has a database of automated answers, but the fact that they are listening should be what we care about.  Imagine if 100 of my friends and I stated our opinion on the company’s lack of sonic blue blush. MAC would then have a choice, to either make the desired blue blush or not.

For argument’s sake, let’s say the company is moving forward with launching the blue blush. One of the next steps would include creating a demo or tester. After successfully completing the product safety testing and quality control, it is time to spend the blush out to the company’s list of influencers. In a perfect world, each influencer is loving and raving about the blush, and their audiences are ecstatic about the innovation.

Before MAC officially launches its sonic blue blush, the company should ask itself “why,” one more time. Why does the world need this blue blush? Why do people want a blue blush? Why did we create a blue blush? The fact is, the answers to these questions can be found with research, and MAC should be obligated to answer them without hesitation.

It is go time; the blue blush has hit the market. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and there are a few loud disapproval’s. Good thing the company did its research and has already blocked @WeHateBlue because of its habit of publicly posting inappropriate comments.

Congratulations! You now have a foundation on how to do a new product launch. What are you going to launch next? I encourage you to read the entire, “17 Steps to Take Before You Launch a Product,” and then let me know what you think the next biggest trend will be.

It’s Time To Get Honest About The Truth

After listening to the recent S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications conversation with NPR’s David Folkenflik, I can tell you true and honest media is more important than ever. In the first couple of minutes of Folkenflik’s opening statement, he brought up the question as to why media may choose to publish articles that may be far from the truth. This idea of dishonest media or fake news got me thinking of ethics, and whether or not the truth really matters.

WAER news director Chris Bolt was one of the mediators for the discussion with Folkenflik. Bolt, brought up a pretty important question – Why doesn’t the media focus on things that are less sexy? Like the environment, local elections, education policy, etc.  The two men were able to get to the conclusion, that at the end of the day, media gives people what they want.

In a recent poll by Gallup, nursing was ranked the number one most trusted profession with 82 percent of participants agreeing for the 16th year in a row. The highest ranking communications profession are newspaper reporters holding steady at 25 percent trustworthiness. Advertisers were ranked low at 18 percent and public relations practitioners did not make the list.

Let us take a detour for a moment and imagine a successful beauty campaign. What made it successful? Can you point out what appealed to you the most? The fact is most beauty campaigns are meticulously crafted, researched and tested before the public ever sees them. The reason for all of this painstaking work is not to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, but to create a connection and beneficial relationship. As Folkenflik said, “we are in a time of extremely short attention spans.” The task of creating a relationship within seconds is daunting and at times may be seen as jarring to the consumer, but who said love, at first sight, was easy?

As you might already know, I am currently studying public relations at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. I have spent quite a bit of time and my money in efforts to become a public relations expert. I think we can all agree that education is very important, but so is your time and money, so here is the truth. Public relations no matter the industry, or position, focuses on building mutually beneficial relationships.

I know our society is in a time of media scrutiny and most people are finding it hard to trust anything, so I think this is a perfect time to remind anyone reading my blog of the six values held by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and me:

1. Advocacy: We provide a voice in the marketplace of ideas, facts, and viewpoints to aid informed public debate.
2. Honesty: We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public.
3. Expertise: We advance the profession through continued expert-level development, research, and education.
4. Independence: We provide objective counsel to those we represent. We are accountable for our actions.
5. Loyalty: We are faithful to those we represent, while also honoring our obligation to serve the public interest.
6. Fairness: We respect all opinions and support the right of free expression.

PRSA Code of Ethics, Signed by Janet Diane White

I have proudly taken the pledge putting honesty at the top of my priorities for this blog and the rest of my career.

Next week, I will be returning to my regular content and am excited to describe the process of a new beauty product launch. In the meantime, please let me know what you think of this type of content in the comment box below.

Where to Post the Most – Your Guide to Fame and Fortune

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.

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

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.

If You’re Not Buying It I Am

Hopefully, you know by now that this blog is focused on the public relations happening within the beauty industry. I am going to let you in on a little secret. This secret, if executed correctly is worth millions of dollars. Now that I have your attention, let us discuss product endorsements.  

I will start off by asking you a simple question. If you had the option to pay for a collection of Dior’s newest makeup products or get the entire collection for free, what would you choose? I think, like me, you would choose to get it for free. Well, what if I then told you Dior is giving away millions of dollars worth of free products that it only hopes the public will see. 

The Business Dictionary defines product endorsement as, “a written or public statement by a celebrity, business or professional group extolling the virtues of a product and recommending the use of the product to the public.” Of course with the overwhelming advances in social media, product endorsements have gone rampant. Product endorsement is very simple, get an influencer to like your product then hope they tell everyone they know about it in what could be the most lucrative tactic for earned media. I can think of a couple of examples, such as your favorite beauty guru telling you how much they love wearing the newest NARS Cosmetics Blush.

Photo by Victoria Heath

Product endorsement skates the fine lines between public relations, advertising, and marketing. In the article, “How Brands Should Use Celebrities For Endorsements,” author Steve Olenski says “even small businesses would be foolish to resist the mere exploration of celebrity influencers to promote their brand.”  Unlike marketing and advertising, public relations focuses on organic endorsement and the goal is to build authentic relationships.

For example, Dior cosmetics reaches out to a well-known beauty influencer. In the message, Dior may say something about how much the company enjoys the influencer’s content and offers to send them new products from its latest collection. The influencer agrees and to the influencers surprise, Dior has sent them not only one but two overnight packages. One for the influencer and another to share. Excited and impressed by the quality of the product, the influencer gets on social media and tells everyone they know about the generosity of Dior. What Dior has done here is what Dr. Regina Luttrell mentions in, “Social Media – How to Engage, Share, and Connect,” as “engaging genuinely and effectively.” 

In the example above, Dior only paid for overnight shipping. Then to the joy of both parties, the collection got fully endorsed through word-of-mouth. This action done by the company will hopefully encourage engagement and generate higher sales. Of course, this is the best case scenario for any product endorsement campaign.

A recent article from Market Watch, says current consumers are sophisticated and crave a connection with the “rich and powerful.” Think of your favorite influencer. Mine at the moment is Patricia Bright. Bright is a beauty, lifestyle and fashion vlogger with millions of followers. After watching her latest, PR unboxing video, I realized just how much most beauty companies are reaching out to influencers and creating these strategic relationships that encourage a somewhat organic product endorsement. To be honest, at the end of each video or well-placed post, if you are not buying it I am.  

Feeling the Surface of Beauty

Just in case you missed Newhouse’s conversation on Social Media & Democracy – Activism in the Digital Age featuring professors Biko Mandela Gray, Dwight Dewerth-Pallmeyer, and Tia C.M. Tyree. I will fill you in because the conversation got me thinking about how much social media shapes our perception of beauty as a society.

All three speakers spoke about how the pace of social media does not allow for critical thinking. After hearing this, I asked myself if I could imagine a world that would allow a person to make critical decisions, that could affect millions of people, while only having the single qualification of looking good. Unfortunately, as pointed out in some of the conversations being had about activism, the world has given power to people that offer a lot less.

Please do not get me wrong, I love a good looking person just as much as the next girl, but what really turns me on is an authentic person. This person would be similar to Dr. Gray in the fact that he was able to articulate complex injustices surrounding civic engagement, the #MeToo movement and even the ever eluded history of black people in America. His fluency and knowledge are concepts I believe our new age is missing.

To support my suspicion of a misinformed new age, Dr. Tyree, went on to talk about how smart smartphones are. Think about your phone, is there something it cannot do or at least give you the answer to? Don’t worry, I am having a tough time thinking of something too.

While we are on the topics of smartphones, social media and since my entire blog is focused on public relations within the beauty industry, let us talk about Instagram. I am sure you have heard that every picture posted on Instagram is fake. Not in the idea that whatever photographed does not exist, but instead the photo itself gives a false depiction of what is truly happening.

Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash

For example, take this photo of an absolutely gorgeous woman. Personally, I do not know who took this photo, why they took it, or how long it took to take, but what I do know is how it makes me feel. Feelings are a concept that comes up quite often in public relations because as Dr. Regina Luttrell mentions in her book, Social Media – How to Engage, Share, and Connect, our number one rule as an influencer is to ‘follow, listen and react.’ After listening to social experts and data, this photo of a happy person makes most people feel sad.

If you ask me to describe how this photo makes me feel, I would have to say, envious. Whether it is how she has managed to pull off a purple lip, or how big her smile is, the picture is perfect. Dr. Dewerth-Pallmeyer said the cure to this sort of picture envy could be to simply turn off the screen. As a millennial, I find it hard to turn off any screen before 1 a.m. Not just because I am waiting for the latest new Jeffree Star approved beauty product; I also often choose to use my smartphone to stay up-to-date on current events, on a wide range of topics because as Dr. Tyree put it “social media is the medium of the moment.”

The New Face of Beauty.

I think it is safe to say that we all know the beauty industry is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. In 2016, the U.S. cosmetics industry alone brought in over 62.4 billion dollars in revenue. Of course, there are many reasons that can account for the success of any industry or business, one of which is the beauty industry’s use of social media influencers.

I was born in 1993, so I remember the time when cellphones did not have internet; my first experience with Apple came in the form of a screen-less iPod shuffle. Though I am currently saving up for the outdated iPhone X, I want to be clear that this post is not about technology or living in the ’90s. Instead, I want to stress that the technological revolution spurred the necessity of using influencers, whether they’re beauty bloggers, vloggers (video blogger), or Instagramers, to promote beauty products.

Why is the use of influencers not only iconic but crucial to the current beauty industry? Before we explore that question, I should start out by saying, beauty influencers are not a new phenomenon and were utilized well before Cleopatra smudged her first eye pencil. 

Lucky for me, I just need to go back less than 30 years ago, when printed ads may have been at the top of any strategic public relations plan. What used to be an entire Maybelline spread only seen by a couple hundred thousand people in People magazine; is now a beauty vlogger reviewing a single Huda Beauty eye-shadow palette on YouTube, garnering around 1.2 million views. Equaling little to no cost to Huda Beauty. 

In a recent book I read, “Social Media – How to Engage, Share, and Connect,” Dr. Regina Luttrell, demonstrated how impactful a video can be when she said, “Approximately 200 million people, or roughly 76 percent of the online population, is consistently viewing video using online and mobile platforms.” 

Take this recent example; Benefit Cosmetics brought Danielle Mansutti, beauty and lifestyle influencer, on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Maldives. The trip was meant to celebrate the launch of the company’s new Bad Gal BANG mascara. Mansutti alone has over 1.5 million YouTube followers, and that vlog has over 212,000 views. Her incredible influence over her target audience brought more benefits to Benefit Cosmetics than anything they could have paid for. I think Benefit and similar companies are leading the way in taking advantage of Dr. Luttrell’s statistic and really utilizing vlogger relations. 

By now you may be wondering about what is in it for the influencers? It can be summed up with two words: sponsored content. Sponsored content is when a company monetizes a YouTube video or blog post to feature some of its products. This sort of partnership can be mutually beneficial; the influencer may get content-worthy free products and a piece of the revenue, through an affiliate link. On the other hand, the company gets more exposure, and depending on the influencer, this chosen type of advertising could be more cost-effective than more traditional advertisements, such as billboards, magazine spreads, and bus benches.

In The New Face of Beauty, where word-of-mouth may be the leading credible source, finding the right influencer is critical to the success of the beauty industry.