Beauty Celebs, Influencers Keep Engaging Better Than Brands on Social Media

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MILAN — Beauty is in the eye of the (phone) beholder.

According to a report by DMR Group, which focuses on monitoring, tracking and analyzing data communication activities and public relations strategies for brands worldwide, in the first five months of the year the amount of beauty content posted on social media increased 5 percent on average, with spikes of 12 and 13 percent in March and April, respectively, during the pandemic confinements in most countries.

In particular, DMR monitored the impact of 130 brands relevant for the beauty industry from January to May, analyzing more than 25,000 accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Weibo.

The number of posts by beauty brands was up by an average of 10 percent, with a 21 percent jump to 6,759 total posts in April. Those shared by celebrities and influencers and media and journalists’ accounts also increased by an average of 5 and 4 percent, respectively, in the first five months of the year.

But this heightened social media activity had different outcomes for the categories of content creators. While brands’ average engagement decreased 2 percent and remained flat in terms of reach, celebrities and influencers proved their social skills once again as their posts’ engagement and reach grew 8 and 2 percent, respectively. Specifically, in April — the best-performing month — the number of beauty posts for this category grew 18 percent to 20,368 contents that reached more than 3.5 trillion users and engaged 231.6 million of them.

The report delved deeper into the attraction of these personalities on social media and ranked the top 10 celebrities and influencers for the world of cosmetics in the first five months of the year by evaluating their posts’ engagement — which comprises the activity of liking and sharing posts, but not commenting on them — and reach.

Kylie Jenner ranked first, as her 96 beauty-related posts engaged 92.4 million users and reached more than 1.2 trillion people. Rihanna followed by engaging 32 million users and reaching more than 571 million people through 22 posts.

The bronze medal went to Mexican makeup artist and influencer Karen Sarahi Gonzalez, who reached 320.2 million users and engaged with 15.5 million of them in her 172 posts citing beauty brands.

The other talents listed include Venezuelan Internet personality Mariale Marrero; beauty YouTuber, entrepreneur and singer CC Clarke; Scottish makeup artist and digital creator Jamie Genevieve; South Korean singer and actress Jisoo; French blogger and YouTuber Sanaa El Mahalli; blogger Katie Mulcahy, and makeup artist Marion Cameleon.

If sorted by average engagement per post, though, South Korean sensation Jisoo led the ranking, followed by Rihanna and Kylie Jenner, while the average reach per post was by Rihanna.

Kylie Jenner stands out in the report for her strategy of frequently sharing content about her line’s makeup and skin-care products, as she dominated the ranking of top three organic posts by a celebrity or influencer in the January-to-May period. In particular, an Instagram image of her on April 25 wearing a white cropped top and jeans and tagging her cosmetics line reached 115.6 million users and engaged 9.6 million of them.

DMR also listed the top three sponsored posts, which represented only 1 percent of total beauty content shared on social media in the first five months of the year. Although the number of these grew 4 percent on average in the period, their engagement and reach was down an average of 14 percent.

Singer Becky G, who counts 25 million followers on Instagram, led the top-three ranking with an image of her sponsoring Ole Henriksen’s “Truth Juice Daily Cleanser” on Instagram on Jan. 15, reaching 9.1 million people. Chiara Ferragni’s posts sponsoring Lancôme on Mother’s Day and on Feb. 10 were second and third in the ranking, as they each reached almost seven million users.

On a wider scope, a more comprehensive DMR study analyzing fashion, luxury and lifestyle accounts in addition to beauty ones showed the number of sponsored posts on Instagram on average decreased 46 percent from February to May, with their engagement and reach down 64 percent on average.

The research was intended to spotlight how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted the state of influencer marketing, as companies focused their budgets on other channels and content creators needed to adapt their tone and creativity to the confinement and complex global situation.

In particular, fashion was the most affected category in terms of sponsored posts’ reductions, followed by jewelry and watches.

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