Americans love their beauty products, spending $56.63 billion on them every year. But it’s not just the lipsticks, blushes, and contour kits that people go crazy for: The demand for digital beauty content is also growing, and supplying that demand is a serious business. In 2015, more than 45.3 billion viewers watched YouTube videos posted by the 183,000 beauty-content-channels, 215 of which are beauty brands.
Other popular social platforms are also boosting beauty in a big way. Take Anastasia Beverly Hills, for example: Since joining Instagram in 2012, the once lesser-known brand @anastasiabeverlyhills has amassed over 8 million followers and takes the lead as the most popular beauty brand on the platform.
To be successful on social media, you don’t have to be a big beauty brand like Revlon, Estee Lauder or L’Oreal; some of the smaller brands are killing it when it comes to digital content strategy, too. Here’s what they’re doing, how they’re doing it and why big brands should follow:
Birchbox
Birchbox is a monthly beauty subscription service that sells curated boxes of beauty samples while offering full-sized products on its e-commerce site. It was born in 2010, and rapidly expanded; now having more than 1 million customers.