Untangling Instagram Barketing for Beauty Brands

The very visual nature of the social platform, along with its tremendous ability to bring passionate communities of like-minded customers together and influence their buying decisions, have made Instagram an ultimate and unavoidable platform for beauty brands.

The biggest challenge beauty industry marketers have always faced is how to stay on top of the one-to-one conversations of their masses, be it beauty tips or product recommendations from mother to child, friend to friend or beauty professional to a client.

• Which mascara is that? 
• Can you explain your techniques for applying your make up?
• What types of lotions do you use?
• How often do you exfoliate your skin?
• Would you ever consider buying a specific brand of lipstick?
• Where do you usually buy your make up?

Social media, especially the revolutionary visual storytelling platform of Instagram, finally became the most powerful and influential tool for the industry, enabling beauty brands to amass millions of cult-like followers.

However, what brands today need to understand is that Instagram marketing strategy for beauty products is more than just posting a lot of pretty pictures. To effectively engage with an expanding audience and operate amongst an ever-growing competitive set, the brands need to speak with an authentic voice and make their customers a part of their stories.

Here are 5 tips to better engage and continue to inspire your existing and potential customers with your uniquely effective Instagram marketing strategies:

1.   Talk to your consumers, never at them.

You should not use Instagram solely for the promotion of your products, in fact, it is important to be extra cautious on Instagram. Audiences on the social platform are looking for unique experiences, striking images or videos, engaging stories and not sales pitches.

If you are using Instagram Ads, make sure relevant content is targeted to the right audience. Share creative and interactive images, videos or stories that your audiences would want to engage with.

2.   Identify Instagram influencers to expand your reach.

With the staggering amount of promotional content your consumers are exposed to, it is becoming a challenge for brands to connect with their people and get the word out without getting lost amongst its competitors online.

How can your brand reach more people and connect with its relevant audience?

The answer lies in influencer marketing.

Peer-to-peer recommendations and word-of-mouth marketing remain one the most powerful marketing strategies there is in the beauty industry, and that's what influencer marketing is all about. Influencers are usually experts in their niches and have loyal fan followers. Identify key social leaders in your industry and collaborate with them to gain public exposure. The more the local or global celebrities, bloggers or influencers talk about your brand, the more the exposure and trust you earn.

3.   Create a branding guide for consistent visual imagery.

What do you want to be known for? What do you want to gain?

No matter what you post on Instagram, be it images, videos, stories or your captions, all your content should reaffirm your brand. Your audiences should instantly recognize it as one of yours. If you’re creating images for your brand yourself, make sure the style remains consistent. And, when posting, ensure you use the same filter to give all the content in your feed a similar feel.

4.   Repost content from relevant accounts.

There is always a better way to create engagement than direct advertisements. One of the most successful and powerful ways to touch your audience is to encourage them to create content for your brand. User-generated content not only creates the feeling of authenticity in your followers but also creates loyalty to your brand, so capitalize on it!

You may do this by creating a unique hashtag that can make your followers feel more connected to your brand, asking your followers to post a photo using it and reposting the best or creative ones on the brand page.

5.   Personalize the brand experience.

Why is personalised content important?

A common saying in beauty business goes like this, "people buy from other people, not from companies." Personalizing content as much as you can is critical to building long-lasting relationships so that your audience actively want to become your customers. Your visual, video and text content assets should inject a character and humanize your brand that allows users to connect easily. However, ensure that it isn’t overdone.

More people are engaging with content through Instagram than ever before. As the most popular visual storytelling platform, it is also becoming one of the more increasingly cluttered market space which means that differentiation is the only key to stand out from the competition.

Want to personalize your brand and reach out to your existing and potential customers through Instagram? Give us a hoot at [email protected] to connect with our online marketing experts and for recommendations.

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Sandhya Menon is the Chief Acceleration Owl and Co-Founder of Owlspire Creative Agency — a digital marketing and advertising agency based in Bangalore. She is a seasoned online marketing professional who is a specialist in Social Media Marketing, Corporate Blogging and Content Marketing. She has envisioned and implemented a number of successful marketing campaigns for clients worldwide. She is also a national award-winning documentary filmmaker. Connect with Sandhya Menon on LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter and Instagram.

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