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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

  

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

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

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]