This generation’s perpetually connected consumers have taken a stronghold on the marketer’s’ message. Brands are constantly aiming to be where the conversation is happening, and consumers are holding the loudspeaker.
Social media users decide when, where, and how they want to engage with brands. And by now, we have all seen popular beauty enthusiasts, insta-models, and MAUs (makeup artists) from all over the world in our Instagram and Facebook feeds persuading us to purchase the latest and greatest eyelash extending mascara, lip-plumping gloss, or skin-perfecting cream in the market. Add a key influencer to the mix (enter Kylie Jenner) and you have a glam-perfect business strategy.
Beauty brands have capitalized on major influencer marketing strategies across visual platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and more. But, the gap between strategy and where to find the prolific content known as UGC (user-generated content) needs to close. With image recognition technology, Talkwalker is empowering brands to discover the most powerful images and voices behind their products.
Why UGC is Powerful for Beauty Brands
UGC has been a proven strategy for brands across many sectors and has been implemented and successfully executed by powerhouses like Starbucks and Coca-Cola; both companies have launched campaigns with the help of their fan followings. The influence of visual user-generated content as an essential marketing tool is growing as it offers a solution to today’s growing challenge known as the “content crunch” in the marketing industry. Creating fresh, relatively cheap, and equally engaging content in a in a sea of media messages at the speed of social is quite a task for the modern marketer.
Take for example, Kylie Jenner and the powerful brand she has created with her self-entitled Kylie Cosmetics line. Last March, Kylie literally made the internet break as Google analytics could not keep track of the number of visitors to hersite when she released a new line of glosses. And to follow the release, droves of beauty enthusiasts posted about their prized Kylie glosses in which they were so lucky to acquire. Kylie kept audiences engaged by re-posting user generated content to her Instagram page and in addition to her social sharing, beauty influencers and enthusiasts cheerfully showed off their glosses creating a viral wave of anticipation for Kylie’s next release.
Kylie Jenner’s lip glosses sell out whenever she promotes them on Instagram, and through her droves of fans and followers who proudly show off their glosses on the visually-oriented app.
Kylie’s lip gloss craze is proof that beauty brands should actively be where their consumers are online and across visual-first social platforms. Their customers and beauty enthusiasts of all shapes and sizes clearly love platforms like Instagram and Facebook because of its visual and easy-to-consume nature.
What’s more? eMarketer predicts that a third of the world’s Internet population is expected to be on the photo-sharing Instagram app by 2018. When Instagram opened its API to advertisers in 2015, it paved the way for beauty brands to successfully target beauty enthusiasts and consumers right at the heart of where they are sharing the most. Brands are flocking to Instagram and Facebook and according to eMarketer, 70.7% say they plan to increase their social strategy on visual platforms by 2017. But why? UGC can be used as a product launch strategy and offers brand building potential that is authentic and credible.
Why Beauty Brands Need Image Recognition to Effectively Find Key Content
A consumers’ path-to-purchase is complex in the mobile digital age, and with the explosion of touch points and the increasing proliferation of connected devices, smartphones and tablets, there is a clear way to define marketing strategy and look for the UGC that resonates best with users and specific audiences. The important part is to find the right tools to empower an image-oriented marketing strategy.
High-end beauty brands and niche brands are among the most ubiquitous on Facebook and Instagram and 40 percent of all brands that stream user-generated content on Instagram and Facebook are beauty brands. More established brands such as Lancome should take a page out of Kylie’s playbook and start refreshing their own content with images from loyalists like the ones we found below using our proprietary image recognition technology.
Image-oriented by nature, beauty companies are investing heavily in Instagram as its popularity continues to grow.
To do this effectively, beauty brands need to be able to detect brand logos as 80% of brand images make no reference to the brand in captions or text, meaning this content is hidden to text-only platforms. With over 1.8 billion images being shared across social every day, it’s a no-brainer for brands to employ strategies and tools which help to locate great UGC content.
Both text-based listening and visual analytics complete a social media monitoring strategy. In order to make strategic decisions, brands must have a complete view of their online presence. With the help of Image Recognition Technology, brands can uncover hidden user-generated content to reinvent strategy and reach the target audiences and consumers who matter.
If you’re in the market for an image recognition platform complete with a suite of social media monitoring tools, contact Talkwalker today!
Banner image: https://www.kyliecosmetics.com
