Introduction
Nowadays, the innovation of the Internet in the late 20th century gives a new concept to consumers. Undoubtedly, with much greater reach online, the importance of digital and Social Media has increased in recent years. Social Media provides a new channel to reach product and brand information from social communication (Kozinets, 1999). In reality, most consumers buying cosmetics products in drugstores tend to be younger than the ones who prefer buying luxury brands in department stores. For these young generation consumers, Social Media seems more attractive to them and shows more impact on their decision-making. This report proposes the power of Social Media to persuade consumers who buy cosmetics in drugstores. The first part is the introduction, followed by a brief industry analysis. The second section mainly represents the strengths of Social Media applied in the cosmetics industry. On the contrary, the third part critically discusses the limitations of Social Media. The next section would simply discuss how to coordinate with another marketing element. And the last section is the conclusion, to sum up all the viewpoints of Social Media.
Industry Analysis
According to Euromonitor, there was a transformation in the beauty industry in 2018. Changing from branding and ethical schedule to more personalized and high technologic proposals. The industry esteems digital communications as crucial as product renovation. The advent of the Internet allows a tighter and closer digital engagement with consumers in the cosmetics industry. More consideration and responsibility need to be enhanced when using technology. Additionally, a more transparent digital environment is vital to all brand consumers.
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Strengths Of Social Media In the Cosmetics Industry
The source of influence has been shifting from traditional media such as TV, radio, and billboards to social networks like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and the new trend of TikTok. The penetration of social networks in the whole world is surging. According to Statista, in 2018, there were around 2.62 billion Social Media users worldwide, up from 2.44 billion in 2017, and is estimated to reach 2.77 billion users this year. Social networking is now one of the most popular online channels with high user engagement and it is still a growth potential.
Impact of Social Media Influencers
Social Media influencers have great social power that can influence people. Influencers attract their followers and build loyalty due to the referent power (Nagi et al., 2014). These influencers are attractive and usually their opinions are important to their fans. For instance, Kylie Cosmetics, which was released in 2016 only spent little budget on advertising but depended on Social Media to promote the brand. Lots of product information and color swatches can be seen on Jenner’s Instagram with nearly 123 million followers. Also, on Kylie Jenner’s Snapchat account, can see the teasers of the new products before the new products launch (MarketLine, 2018). The success of Kylie Cosmetics rewrote the rules in cosmetics marketing. According to Barker, using Social Media influencers as the products’ main marketing promotion offers several beneficial effects. First, social influencer marketing is credible. Social influencers make an effort and spend much time managing their account to win the trust of the fans. Influencers share their lives and create close relationships with their followers. Fans believe and have loyalty to the person they subscribe to or follow. Often, they trust the advice and is easy to purchase the products that are recommended by the influencers. Another advantage of social influencer marketing is less costly but with value. Compared to traditional media channels like TV ads, inviting a famous YouTuber to film a video is more inexpensive but can increase the equivalent value of video views. Also, with the rise of micro-influencers, there is no need to spend much money on social influencer marketing (Influencer Intelligence, 2018). Cosmetics sold in drugstores have a common point of shorter product life cycles and tighter budgets. Cooperating with micro-influencers can both connect their target audience and save the budget. The other benefit is social influencer marketing can help content strategy. Creating content to attract and engage audiences is important. Influencers’ job is to come up with high-quality content for their social channels. Some successful influencers even have a team for creating content to reach higher engagement with their followers.
Effective communication through Social Media networks
The invention of the chatbot reduces the work of dealing with amount of customer issues. It can be integrated into the platforms that most people use, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. When launching new a product, a chatbot can also help deliver the information and answer the questions related to the product anytime. As beauty is a much more personal experience, chatbots can transfer messages successfully with personalization. Besides, the target audience can be reached by running social ads like Facebook ads or YouTube ads. A key benefit of these media is they are more likely to reach the audience precisely. With lots of users' databases of what content they like and usually watch, a targeting system is developed for advertising. By targeting people by age, gender, interests, and location can help find the exact audiences. Different brands target the customers in various aspects, it also helps to differentiate the customer that is related to the brand. Another major benefit of Social Media advertising is it can drive the conversation and the outcome immediately. It is faster and easier to share content with the public (Gupta, 2018). In the cosmetics industry, there is less time for products from conception to launch. With the characteristics of targeting the potential audience and spreading the message massively and quickly, Social Media would be a proper choice to fit the fast-moving beauty industry. The other positive effect is that Social Media can increase brand awareness. For example, to raise brow awareness, Benefit Cosmetics planned a campaign featuring beauty influencer Patrick Star and ran the ads across Facebook and Instagram. As a result, 13 million audiences and a 19-point lift in ad recall are reached (Facebook, 2017).
Limitations Of Social Media In the Cosmetics Industry
Social media plays an important role in consumer buying decisions. Undoubtedly, it represents many positive effects in the cosmetics industry in aiding in delivering messages and information massively and rapidly. Even though Social Media is a new and hot trend and can have a great impact on consumers, there are still some limitations described below. Social Media is a double-edged sword; it can bring both positive and negative influences in the maximum way. Only using the media with discreet consideration can help reduce the risk.
Risks of WOM
The arrival of the Internet has not only enlarged consumers’ options for gathering unbiased product information from others but also offered an opportunity for consumers to receive advice and recommendations with an engagement of word-of-mouth (Gwinner et al., 2004). Getting to understand the influencers who are specifically influencing others in the target market is not easy. It takes some time to identify the potential influencers and it needs time and effort to build a relationship with them (Evans and Mckee, 2010). It is important to do careful research when deciding the influencer to partner with. It is vital to ensure the chosen influencer is socially responsible is committed to the partnership and understands the key value of the brand (Winchel, 2018). But the reputational risks still seem inevitable. If the scandal or the fraud is discovered, it cannot only weaken the confidence of the influencer but also affect the reputation of the brand. It would affect badly to the businesses that are related to the influencer. An example of this can be seen with Fan Bingbing, who is in trouble with an overdue fax. The fan has massive followers on Social Media and has had a partnership with L’Oreal for many years. When the scandal broke, it had a negative effect on the brand. It would cause damage to brand preference and credibility.
Infiltrating and Fake Followers on Social Media
The issue of fraud followers stroked Social Media marketing last year. Before, from mega-influencers to micro-influencers, the number of followers was one of the most important categorizations of influencers as it is a standard to represent their popularity. However, when there is an opportunity for massive volumes of an influencer’s fans to be fraud, follower count can no longer be the benchmark when choosing opinion leaders (Penny, 2018). For brands, fake followers can cause a huge waste while brands usually pay for different influencers based on how many followers they have. All beauty brands care about the engagement of their consumers, if the chosen influencers have great fake followings; it is hard to achieve the estimated engagement (Robles, 2018). In 2018, Keith Weed, Unilever’s CMO, tried to urge brands to work collaboratively to eradicate fraudulent activity. It needs more discussion and a deeper understanding of influencers before making decisions. Moreover, it is essential to clean up the industry and rebuild trust and authenticity by collaborating across platforms and brands (Weed, K, 2018).
Coordination With Other Marketing Elements
Given that Social Media has a component of social media, it has the power of influence; on the other hand, it is a fast-moving channel. Social Media marketing can be more successful with a clear and inspiring story of the product. A good story can activate empathy, allowing consumers to feel the emotions and understand the key element that the brand trying to deliver. The more deeply the consumers are engaged by the story, the more loyalty and stickinuld brands gain from them (Genco et al., 2013). And the role of Social Media is to convey the story to a substantial amount of audiences. For example, Fenty Beauty, the cosmetics brand of Rihanna achieves huge success. Behind the brand, Fenty Beauty was created for everyone to feel lightweight and to ‘make skin look like skin.’ Designed for women of all shades, personalities, cultures, and races. Rihanna created 40 shades of foundation, focusing on all skin tones so that every woman would be included. The story of the product line inspires many women to break the boundaries. Fenty Beauty then builds this positive connection with consumers through various Social Media channels. With the coordination of color choices to suit all skin and Social Media marketing lead the brand to a great success (MarketLine, 2018).
Conclusion
In conclusion, Social Media has become a crucial channel as it has had a large volume of users in recent years. It can fit in the fast-paced beauty industry with the characteristic of active and immediate. Social Media can help convey the message to the target audience in a more effective way. Through the partnership with opinion leaders, the cosmetics can be well introduced to the fans with persuasive and credible content. However t,here are some limitations to the media. The risk of word-of-mouth and the rise of fake followers are two key issues that need to be aware of. Dealing with Social Media is never an easy task. As highlighted, it requires better understanding and consideration before executing the marketing plan. Social Media advertising can cause a stronger impact with consumer-generated brand stories. It is a better channel for brands to communicate with consumers and can evolve the brand story (Gensler et al., 2013). Key features and the examples listed above show the importance of Social Media in the cosmetics industry.
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