Marketing tips to enhance Facebook reach of beauty brands

The beauty and wellness Industry is ever growing and market players are looking at interesting avenues to benefit from the new avenue of opportunities. With multiple brands and growing competition, companies are constantly evolving their marketing approach to reach out to their customers in a much engaging manner. Traditional marketing channels are getting cluttered and obsolete in many cases and this has made a pathway for innovative marketing strategies to play a crucial role. It provides its users, be it organisations, individuals, brands etc. with a plethora of platforms to engage on and build social communities.

According to a KPCB report on internet trends, the number of internet users in India grew rapidly, by 40 per cent in 2015, to 277 million compared the year 2014. India has also become the second-largest country in the world in terms of internet users, ahead of the US, and behind China.

With a young, tech-savvy population, improved education and rapid growth, India is creating a consumer market deeply tied into mobility and connectivity.Customers are now enjoying the benefits of technology and connectivity with the convenience of a click of a button. These customers are greatly influenced by innovative brand strategies and their consumption pattern is impacted by these strategies. This also reflects in their beauty and wellness centric purchases. This trend is not only limited to urban areas but also extends to rural India. The use of social media in rural India has grown 100 per cent in the past year with 25 million people using the Internet to access Twitter and Facebook, according to an IAMAI-IMRB report.

Given these advancements in social media and technology, one cannot imagine their lives in today’s day and age without access to the internet. Brands have identified that the role of social media in enhancing their marketing approach is crucial and have started incorporating various social media platforms in their marketing strategies.

One of the most used social networking sites, Facebook, is a universe of information on people, places, startups, trends, news etc. It is one of the most engaging audio – visual platforms where you could find or share almost any information, personal and favorite memories as well as connect with people and brands across the globe.Unlike various other social media platforms which have limitations in their format, Facebook allows users to share content through multiple options. For example: The word count on Twitter cannot exceed 140 characters, YouTube only allows video content to be uploaded and Instagram is a platform solely for pictures. On the other hand, Facebook allows users to seamlessly publish any kind of content without any restrictions or limitations. Beauty brands across the world have leveraged this social media outlet to creatively tell stories about themselves as well as engage with communities and consumers.

Facebook being one of the leading social media websites has the potential to magnify the reach of a company or brand in the Beauty and Wellness industry as it has a large number of active users globally. According to a recent report, Facebook user base crossed 142 millions in India out of which nearly 133 million users access the website through their mobile phones. This creates a very lucrative opportunity for brands to connect with their target audiences and further amplify their marketing/brand communication.

Below are few recommendations that beauty brands can keep in mind when engaging with their stakeholders on Facebook.

Timing

Timing is very crucial and this applies to Facebook as well. Although Facebook users are active all through the day, there are research options and tools that can help a company identify a pattern or the ideal times when their target audiences are active which would help to achieve maximum traction online and engage with them. Facebook has its own tool called Facebook Insight which is very helpful in facilitating such information. It closely tracks the activities of the users and shares their usage patterns. Brands can extract details like the best time of the day or week to post content, and the type of content to post which will garner the required impact. It also monitors user interactions on a Facebook page and helps understand the page performance.

Seasonal Content

The beauty portfolio is expanding in response to the growing consumer demands and a large number of products have seasonal consumption. Brands have promotional cycles for their products and services which can be amplified through Facebook. This also helps in integrating the marketing and social media channels for boosting business. While brands usually push their products during certain times in the year, it is important to be proactive about understanding seasonal trends and acting on them. Implementing a strong online marketing strategy prior to the brand’s ‘hot season’ can yield excellent results year-on-year for the business. This is that time in the year when customers’ shopping activities are high, example during wedding seasons. However, seasonal content is not only limited to calendar occasions and can be leveraged basis industry trends and developments. Topical content pertaining to trends, seasons etc. can help keep the momentum of engagement going.

Manage the online reputation carefully

Facebook is a great medium to communicate, engage and receive feedback. There have been instances where companies have derived excellent consumer insights through conversations on Facebook. Given the interactive interface, customers also use these platforms to share their negative experiences. Brands must come up with a quick response to cater to such issues. It is most important to deal with such cases critically as they have the potential to harm a company’s reputation. Being sensitive and optimistic goes an extra mile in solving such problems. It is better to provide customers with solutions rather than getting defensive. A quick turnaround time can help solve the issue quickly before it goes viral on social media.It is important to be active and spontaneous while interacting with customers. If a negative review comes your way, give assurance to move ahead.Always be positive.

Don’t over-sell your products and services all the time

Managing and filtering of content is critical. It cannot be about your products and services all the time. Content and conversations have to be flowing and should look at educating and entertaining consumers as well. Being a source of information that is not only relevant to the brand but associated ancillary brands, industries etc. will help drive more traffic to your page. If all the content on a brand’s Facebook page has sales as a call to action, after a point of time it becomes monotonous and redundant and in the bargain the customer may disconnect from the brand. Customers also follow brands that give out information that benefit the customers. This information may or may not be directly related to the brand or service offerings. Tutorials, industry trends, neutral articles/ updates, etc. are good alternative content opportunities for a brand to connect with existing and prospective customers.

Location targeting

As the customers’ needs are different across geographies, it is necessary to tailor the marketing strategy accordingly to keep the content relevant to target market. The same option is also available on Facebook. Geo-targeting helps a great deal in engaging with a highly selective group of potential customers who can be influenced through social media.As Facebook encourages interactive conversations and promotes word-of-mouth, brands can use this approach to reach out to the right mix of customers with the required messaging.

Create value with your content

The content being published on official social media platforms needs to be relevant to the brand values and needs to add value to the various stakeholders. Creative content can be used strategically to engage with customers to know their feedback. Create opportunities to have a consistent social media outreach by promoting the Facebook content on other platforms as well. Facebook as a medium is highly integrated and allows a large number of users to come together for a massive reach. Content does not limit to only posts or pictures, videos are playing a great role in amplifying social media communications. Keep the messaging consistent by managing the quality and quantity of content being published on Facebook? Therefore, publish content that is original, engaging, relevant and sharable.

Social media is evolving everyday and the dynamics of Facebook are enhancing phenomenally to become a smarter social media platform. The benefit that brands can derive out of this opportunity is limited only to their imagination. Creative communication is becoming a new era of marketing and brands can deploy many strategies to benefit from this. The growth of internet penetration and rise in the number of customers on social media will help brands enhance their communication on Facebook.

This article is written by Arvind RP, Vice President and Head - Marketing, Kaya Ltd (India), as per his personal experience and research in the area.