Luxury Cosmetic Goes Social

To me, cosmetics and skin care is the one industry where word-of-mouth will always trample painstakingly designed advertisements to lure my money in. This is one consumer product that women (mostly) will always buy more just because of reading a good review online. The act of putting something on your face to maintain its youth and enhance its beauty is such an intimate experience, which makes social media the perfect platform to market a new product because we cautious consumers look to the experts to help select the right products for us out of the myriad.

What makes social media helpful is the fact that this particular shopping process is complicated. Finding the right makeup and skin care involves many trial and error sessions because people just have different skin types and complexions. What works for you may not work for me. This is why companies can really use social media to their advantage and create a better simpler experience for us. For example, some companies have been giving free products for popular beauty bloggers to write reviews on. So instead of trying all the 10,000 brands of mascara out there, I can narrow down my top picks before I venture into Sephora.

Most brands like Benefit and Clinique are on Facebook. They launch new products by first leaking some features online or offer fans a chance to enter into a competition of some sort to receive free samples. On Clinique’s Facebook page, they’re asking customers to vote on the name for a new lipstick due to make its debut. As a customer, I definitely appreciate this effort of becoming more personal and interactive. In my opinion though, no one does it better than Lancome. It’s a luxury cosmetics brand that seems to have fully embraced this social frenzy.

Beginning 2007, Lancome has signed with Balistik*Art, a communications agency, to carry out its digital PR strategy through online channels. Balistik*Art’s core competency is to campaign through storytelling and adapt the message toward a very specific audience—bloggers and social media. This agency conducts what they call “Community Management” where they carefully keep track of what is being said and written about a particular brand or product on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forums. Their clientele includes Dior, Marc Jacobs and YSL, just to name a few. It’s obvious how much attention is given to the sheer power of social media by these high-end names.

Lancome has its own Twitter account and various micro-sites for almost all its new products. What really sets it apart is when Lancome developed The Most Precious Eyes, a social media platform for customers to share tips and their own unique experiences with this brand. My personal favorite move of theirs though, is in 2010 when they reached out to Michelle Phan, the ultimate Youtube Star and hired her as the official video makeup artist for Lancome, the first of its kind. Michelle is a 23 year old art school student who Youtubes makeup tutorials ranging from a-day-at-the-office look to Disney character makeovers. Her channel has more than 750,000 subscribers and 580,175 people "like" her on Facebook as of this moment. She recently became the number one "guru" on Youtube, the first female to ever rank this high. Basically, if you're a girl and have ever tried to put makeup on, you have heard of her.

The funny thing is, before all this had happened, she actually applied for a Lancome behind-the-counter job and was turned down. Of course later everyone realized how much of a web sensation she'd become and that she used several Lancome products in her videos definitely caught Lancome's attention. I am not Michelle's number 1 fan yet, but she is pretty captivating to watch. As crazy as her skills are, she appears very humble and mellow on her videos as she would stress the importance of inner beauty as well. I have taken mental notes of some Lancome eye shadows that she used and looked great and might even try some once I can afford it. So I think social media definitely works. It's a relatively cheap and effective way to target millions of potential consumers who navigate the social network, eager to learn more.