A look at how five leading cosmetics brands cultivate significant engagement on Instagram, including through influencer marketing.
While compiling data for our coverage of Fashion Week earlier in the year, we noticed that cosmetics brands were generating huge engagement on Instagram. Benefitting from loyal followings and Instagram’s platform for lavish visuals, both established and lesser-known names were notching up significant numbers.
With this in mind, we decided to see which cosmetics brands are performing best on Instagram and what factors are contributing to their success.
We looked at Instagram data for the top five cosmetics brands on Instagram for the month of April 2016. The five brands were identified using NewsWhip Spike and are as follows: MAC, TooFaced, Sephora, Urban Decay, and Maybelline.
Sign up for a free trial of Spike and see which beauty brands and influencers are captivating users on Instagram.
The following table sets out the total engagements generated by these brands in April.
MAC were by far the most successful cosmetics brand this period, with almost 8.4 million interactions. MAC is one of the most high-profile cosmetics brands in the world so its success is not entirely unexpected, but it’s interesting to compare its figures to some other names in the list. TooFaced, the second placed brand in this ranking, earned 4.8 million interactions in April and outperformed MAC for average interactions.
This table sets out the average engagements generated by each of these brands. In addition to TooFaced, Urban Decay also move up a spot, generating about 5,000 more interactions on average than Sephora.
Each of TooFaced’s posts in April notched up an average of 68,584 interactions. Interestingly, the brand also posted substantially fewer times than MAC – 70 posts in total to MAC’s 130. While TooFaced may have not the same level of reach overall, it does have a thriving, loyal, and actively engaged audience. In some ways, average interactions may be taken as a slightly more meaningful metric than total engagements in that it illustrates the impact an individual post can have. Brands with an enthusiastic following can earn huge numbers from relatively little activity by understanding its audience and tailoring content to their interests.
Factors influencing engagement
A breakdown of the top posts overall reveals a huge mixture of approaches. The vast majority of the top 25 posts came from two brands, MAC and TooFaced, but their feeds show a marked difference in approach.
For MAC, product highlights and anticipation drove colossal engagement. Its top post for this period was a preview of a lipstick, taken from a collection designed to commemorate the late singer Selena. The product was published with a thoughtful statement from Selena’s sister, underlining the ethos behind the collection. This image earned nearly 147,000 interactions in April.
MAC also featured several images of products from an upcoming pastel-themed collection. Many of these images used filters designed to evoke a vintage, dreamy feel; adding to the overall aesthetic of the collection. One of these images was the third-biggest of any brand for this period, earning over 124,000 engagements in April.
Living in theme, a pastel dream. #MACPlaylab #MACSoftcore
A photo posted by M∙A∙C Cosmetics (@maccosmetics) on
MAC, like several other names on this list, has an advantage in that its products tend to have colourful, eye-catching designs. The visual appeal of the products themselves makes them stand out in users’ feeds, with bright, vivid colours instantly alluring the eye in Instagram’s polished timeline. This combined with the recognisability of the brand and many of its spokesmodels – such as the singers Halsey and Ariana Grande – draws huge interest from users. Reposted images tend to be drawn from make-up artists at its counters around the world, distinguishing the brand from others which feature beauty bloggers and vloggers.
TooFaced has been praised by beauty marketers for its smart work with influencers and this is evident in their Instagram feed in April. While their biggest post is a giveaway for followers, the second biggest was a preview of upcoming products – as initially posted by a beauty blogger.
This trend continues throughout the brand’s most successful posts for the period. All but one of its ten biggest posts for this period featured an influencer, and each generated a minimum of 92,000 engagements. The posts are a mixture of product teases and make-up tutorials, each linking back to the blogger or vlogger who posted it originally.
Of particular note is the geographical diversity of influencers sought out by TooFaced. The brand linked to Instagram personalities as far apart as the US, Australia, and Greece. What’s more, the influencers’ following differed hugely – some had tens of thousands of followers, while others had only a few hundred. It’s an intriguing strategy which speaks to the brand’s efforts to market itself as an accessible, inclusive alternative to other names. By focusing on influencers with smaller followings as well, it’s showing an admirable awareness of up-and-coming names and a willingness to work with those still establishing themselves on social.
The impact of working with smaller or less well-known influencers has been discussed by beauty industry insiders. Digital natives and millennials regularly seek out new products on social, leading brands to turn to influencers more so than the traditional spokesmodel. Posts such as these help them reach ordinary consumers, many of whom value the word of a local vlogger over that of a celebrity. The posts feel more down-to-earth and authentic and stand apart from the air of exclusivity generated by other brands.
Elsewhere, crossover marketing was another factor boosting engagement for cosmetics brands. Both Sephora and Urban Decay, in particular, saw significant engagement on posts featuring Disney-themed products. Sephora’s image of a Minnie Mouse-themed make-up kit at Disneyland was the brand’s biggest post for this period (and the 12th biggest overall) with just under 102,000 interactions.
Urban Decay’s Alice in Wonderland-themed make-up palette allowed for lush visual additions to its feed, each of which spurred enthusiastic engagement. This video post previewing the palette earned nearly 73,000 interactions.
When Disney asked us to collaborate with them again on an all-new spectacular adventure, of course we said yes. Here’s a quick look at the limited edition Alice Through the Looking Glass collection! #UDinWonderland #UrbanDecay #throughthelookingglass ???
A video posted by Urban Decay Cosmetics (@urbandecaycosmetics) on
The company’s flagship product – the “Naked” palette – is hugely popular, and continues to drive consistently high interaction. Its biggest post in April was this image of a collection of palettes, which earned 87,331 interactions.
What’s immediately apparent from this analysis is the impact of influencer marketing on cosmetics brands on Instagram. Established and less well-known brands all benefit from smart, targeted work with influencers, which helps them reach huge numbers of engaged users. Combined with the ready availability of colourful, eye-catching visuals, this means beauty brands have some of the highest engagement levels on Instagram.
