How the beauty companies use the Facebook to marketing?

In the last blog, I explain why the beauty companies should use the Facebook to marketing and today, I will explain how the beauty companies actually use Facebook for marketing via the study of Shen & Bissell (2013). This study analyses the Facebook page of six beauty companies which including Estee Lauder, MAC Cosmetics, Clinique, L’Oreal, Maybelline, CoverGirl.

According to Shen & Bissell (2013), among 6 types of posts (event, product, promotion, entertainment and other) the entertainment is the most popular and engaging post on the Facebook of the six beauty brands. The picture A, B and C are the example of the “Product”, “Event” and “Promotion” post and the example of “Entertainment “posts will give later because there are many different types of entertainment post such as: beauty poll, Q&A, survey, activity with reward, application.

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Picture A: “Product” type of post (Source: https://goo.gl/MLsCSV)

When the beauty business would like to introduce new products or remind customers about existing products, they can use “Product” type of post.

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Picture B: “Event” type of post (Source: https://goo.gl/2hgWKJ)

When the beauty businesses want to let the customers know what are they doing or when they would like to invite people to come to their event, they can use this type of post.

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Picture C: “Promotion” type of post (Source: https://goo.gl/XKfcG5)

This post is often used to let the customers know about offers and promotion of the business.

The study of Shen & Bissell finds out that the most engaging tool of its entertainment-related posts that urged the Facebook users make comments is survey or beauty poll. However, the beauty companies preferred to give open-ended questions (Q&A), but Shen & Bissell (2013) revealed that the survey group was more likely to get more answers and commented than other types of entertainment (beauty poll, Q&A, survey, activity with reward, applications and others.

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Picture D: open – ended questions (Q&A) (Source: https://goo.gl/MLsCSV)

The beauty companies will write the question on the post and people can comment to answer them.

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Picture E: Survey and Beauty Poll

(Source: https://goo.gl/XKfcG5, https://goo.gl/IIr6O0 )

Two types of post will get more answer and comments than other types of entertainment and the business usually asks multi choice questions.

This study also points out that the high end brands (MAC, Estee Lauder) rarely or may never have post that carry promotion information and in the opposite, the department store brands like L’Oreal, Maybelline, CoverGirl has more promotion posts which including coupons or a discount code.

Thus the department store brands use Facebook as sales tool, but the MAC Cosmetics does not have any promotion posts but It is the champion of the beauty digital index 2011. The reason is because the company can collect the thoughts and advice of consumers via Q&A posts. This could help the company enhances the brand loyalty and the customers may become the long-term buyers gradually because the customers may feel the business listen to their opinions. However, Schultz (2009) argued that the primarily aim to using the social media is to selling products or services.

Among the six types of cooperative channels which including social media, spokesperson/model, expert/artist, blogger, brands within the same company, and other, the beauty companies often use social media, spokesperson or model, makeup expert or artist to enhance brand loyalty.

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Picture F: L’Oréal Paris links its post with its Youtube channel

( Source:https://goo.gl/rDcM9O)

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Picture G: In this post, Mac is included the clip about Ariane Grande talk about the profit of this Mac lipstick will donate to the charity (Source: https://goo.gl/2hgWKJ)

Overall, the beauty companies can use different types of post to achieve different aims. So your businesses want to introduce new products or remind the customers about existing products, the “Product” post is for you. But do not forget about having a link to your website or direct to product’s website that the customers can use to find out more information about it and also may consider about purchase it because Facebook can be used as sale tool (Schultz ,2009).

If your business creates the event like free makeup class to teach how to use your products or which event that you will be attend or you have any campaign that you are currently running or may have in the future, you can let your customers know about via “event” post.

The beauty companies do not use “promotion” post much, so if you want to let customers know about your offers or promotion, I suggest that you should use the email marketing because it will send direct to your target customers.

The most popular and engaging post on the Facebook for beauty companies are the entertainment type which means most of your post should be beauty poll, Q&A, survey, activity with reward, application. However, if your businesses want to collect thought and opinions of the customers, you should use beauty poll and survey because Shen & Bissell said those post will have more answers or comments than other post, so you will have a rich information about the customers.

However, many beauty companies preferred Q & A because it will increase the interaction between the customers and the business and the customers may share their experience or tips of using products on the comment. So other customers can read those experience and tips and may use or share it as the reference, thus the Facebook can be used as eWOM tool too. Moreover, the beauty companies can use other types of cooperative channels such as social medial, spokesperson/models or expert/artist to enhance brand loyalty.

You can know the disadvantage of using Facebook in my last post which is the business can not control the content that the customers will comment or post on their well such as bad experience or have problem with customer service/ products. Moreover, Shen & Bissell also suggest another disadvantages is the costumers often “like” rather than “comment” on the post because the Facebook users may think It is easy to “like” rather than spend time and effort to comment. However, there is not enough evidence or studies about this explanation yet, so it will need further investigation to find out the answer.

Reference:

Shen,B. & Bissell K. (2013) Social Media, Social Me: A Content Analysis of Beauty Companies’ Use of Facebook in Marketing and Branding. Journal of PromotionManagement. Volume 19 (Issue 5) [Online] < http://goo.gl/crkzWH> [Assesses 9 May 2016]

Schultz, D. E. (2009). Solving Marketing Problems with an Integrated Process. International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. Spring, 2009.

Sengupta, S. (2012). Facebook’s prospects may rest on trove of data. The New York Times. [Online] < http://goo.gl/zwAqpU> [Assesses 9 May 2016]

Why the beauty companies should use the Facebook to marketing?

In the previous blog, we get to know what is social media and different types of it and today, I will explain why the business should use the Facebook in details. Firstly, Facebook is a social networking site and has 665 million daily (Smith, 2013) active users and now many companies use Facebook to promote their brands as well as their products. Also, in the past the business often uses one-way communication but the Facebook helps to turn it into a more interactive model of communication which is the business can delivery its information to the customers and the customers can give their feedback and thoughts back to the business (Sengupta, 2012)

There are many benefits that the business can get by using the Facebook for marketing (Smith,2013; Belicove, 2009; Shen & Bissell,2013):

  1. Build relationships with customers:

The first benefits is building a relationship with your customers because Facebook provide the opportunity to let you connect with your customers and build a trusting relationship gradually. When people likes the Fan page of the business, it means that they are interesting in this brand and they can find out more about the brand through the posts of business. If the post is useful and meaningful, people will trust the business gradually and willing to share it with their friends and family.

2.Engage with the customer and influence your prospects:

The customers can engage with the brand on a Facebook Fan Page by posting them ask and answer questions, share their video and photos about the products on the business’s Facebook Wall. And the business can also communicate back with the customers by replying the comments or posts.

Moreover, the customers can become brand ambassadors of the business. For example, If the Dove share the tips to take care of skin on its wall, and the customers see it and think it is useful. So they share the post of Dove to their friends and may influence theirs friends to like the Fan page and even become aware of Dove or its products.

3.Increase brand awareness and reinforce brand loyalty:

The business can introduce its new products, promotions or campaign in its wall and the post will pop up on the newsfeed of the customers, so the customers will know about it. Those posts also help to remind the customers about the brand, thus it will Increase brand awareness and reinforce brand loyalty.

4.Drives Traffic to Your Website:

Most of the business will leave a link to their website in their Fan page and their posts. Then a small portion of Facebook huge amount of daily active users that redirect to the business’s website could improve the amount of qualifies traffic on their sites

Example: In the Dove’ Fan page, it has more than 26,000,000 people that can see its new post on their newsfeed and the business can leave its information which including its website in the “About” box and as you see in the picture, Dove also leave the link to its website in their post as well. So if people see the Dove’s post pop up on their newsfeed and they are interesting about it, they will click to the link and go to the Dove’s website.

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Picture 1: Dove Facebook Fan page (Source: https://goo.gl/p1w3We)

5.Improve your business:

The customers may let down their guard and be honest to share their information with the business and others about how do they feel about the products and services, the good and bad experience and also some of their opinions or comments will helps the company improve their business.

For example: The link in the post below of Dove was not working, but then the customers noticed and comment to tell the Dove about it, so the Dove can fix the link right away.

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(Source: https://goo.gl/p1w3We)

6.Improve your SEO:

The new Social Search feature of Google is now listing contents that are created on sites such as Facebook, your Fan Page content therefore will have the potential to generate favorable search engine results. By connecting your Fan Page to your website, you can use Social Search to drive even more viewers back to your site.

Example: When people type the brand on the search engines like in picture 1, it is not only shows the main website, but also shows the Facebook’s page of the business and in picture 2, the customers use the Social Search of Google, they will leaded to the Fan Page as well. So that will increase the chance that your customers will redirect to your website.

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Picture 2: Search “Dove” on Google (Source: https://goo.gl/P0Pi3q)

dove 5 Picture 3: Search “Dove” on Google Social Search (Source:https://goo.gl/hkKohB)

Overall, the beauty companies should use the Facebook marketing because it has lots of benefits, but like other digital marketing, the major disadvantages of the Facebook marketing is the business can not control the content, comments, post that post by the customers about  its products or services. However, the business can contact the customer and solve the problems right away and it will helps to increase the reputation of the business as well.

Reference:

Belicove, M. E. (2009) 10 Ways a Facebook Fan Page Helps Your Business. [Online] <https://goo.gl/AnX9yC> [Assesses 9 May 2016]

Sengupta, S. (2012). Facebook’s prospects may rest on trove of data. The New York Times. [Online] < http://goo.gl/zwAqpU> [Assesses 9 May 2016]

Shen,B. & Bissell K. (2013) Social Media, Social Me: A Content Analysis of Beauty Companies’ Use of Facebook in Marketing and Branding. Journal of Promotion Management. Volume 19 (Issue 5).

Smith, J. (2013) 3 Reasons Why YOUR Business Should be using Facebook Marketing. [Online] <http://goo.gl/aWT8hR> [Assesses 9 May 2016]