• by Jessica Phillips , January 5, 2023

The power of beauty influencers to build brand awareness and spark sales remains unchallenged. The most successful influencer marketing strategies take a multichannel and multi-pronged approach. Here is some advice on how to approach your efforts:

Leverage UGC across all channels and product gifting programs.Half of consumers trust UGC over other forms of marketing. Not sure how to develop UGC for a brand? Consider gifting programs to micro-influencers, employees, and skincare experts. Keep a close eye on your brand's hashtags on Instagram and TikTok to find quality content to repost.

One celebrity beauty brand repurposes the best-performing UGC on Pinterest and YouTube to create an omnichannel presence, showcasing a diverse range of consumer influencers. Pinterest is an ideal platform for UGC ecommerce, as the "Idea Pin" format allows for a fully shoppable interface.

Use macro influencers to support marquee campaigns like new product drops, expansion announcements, and to kick-start initiatives that ask audiences to participate. Next capitalize on micro-influencers for product reviews, daily routines, and to bolster trends started by macro-influencers.

Strategize campaigns that tap into cosmetic trends. Review top TikTok posts to find crossover trends that fit your brand’s niche. Cosmetic brands should mix broad topics like #Beauty (140M views) and niche trends like #cleangirl (1.5B views) when implementing its content strategy.

The #cleangirl trend is ideal for brands with “clean” ingredients, lightweight finishes and chemical-free products. Another trend to consider is #sustainability (2.5B TikTok views). When making a purchase, three out of four Gen-Zersprioritize sustainability over a brand name, according to First Insight. Sustainable cosmetics brands should partner with like-minded influencers to show respect for nature.

Shift brand goals away from awareness and towards in-app sales.As UGC continues to scale, it’s clear that paid influencer activations will pivot away from brand awareness as an overarching goal. Instead, the focus of influencer spending will shift to shoppable campaigns and personalized ecommerce recommendations.

Driving sales through influencers has become more streamlined thanks to shoppable in-feed posts and personalized ecommerce tools. Instagram’s shop capabilities push followers directly to featured products, view curated collections, and check out in-app. Never far behind, TikTok has introduced new shoppable ads, speeding up the consumer shopping journey, and moving viewers from "content to cart." As shoppable social becomes the norm for promoted content, brands should test a range of influencers to key in on the best performers.

Create your comprehensive cosmetics influencer marketing plan. Bring your influencer strategy to the forefront of your product marketing. Authenticity should always be your goal, as well as communicating your place within a niche community. Monitor tagged posts and related brand hashtags, and repost high-performance UGC to Pinterest and YouTube Shorts. Lastly, secure usage rights from influencers and make sure you plan for shoppable in-feed ads!