How TikTok beauty trends are driving the newest innovations in personal care

The power of TikTok beauty influencers 
With many of us cooped up at home during the pandemic, behaviors on social media began rapidly changing. According to Mintel; “it is in fact TikTok users who are the most likely to get beauty inspiration or advice from social media”. TikTok influencers exploded in growth across 2020, offering  a variety of entertaining and educational content, across all segments within personal care, skin care, hair care, and more! While these types of influencers were already well known on other platforms like Instagram and YouTube, TikTok with its short, unfiltered, and viral videos became the platform of choice for this market. 

These influencers go way beyond just showcasing their skin care routines and makeup looks, they drive significant awareness for brands. So, if you purchased those famous TikTok leggings, you understand how it works!

How beauty brands are using TikTok to increase sales
TikTok has proven to be a great platform for growing brand awareness of new products and innovations. Now, brands are kicking it up a notch, with paid influencer collaborations, to encourage sales of their products. For newer/smaller brands, ultra-saturated platforms like Instagram are proving difficult when trying to break through the noise and stand out amongst competitors. By using paid influencers on TikTok, brands are finding it easier to stand out, and penetrate the Millennial and  Generation Z markets.

Isle of Paradise, a 100 percent vegan self-tanning brand, leveraged a mix of different influencers that helped to story tell and build community around its bestselling product, “Glow Drops”. Each influencer developed original content showing how they apply the product, along with creating custom hashtags to help drive awareness and sales. TikTok is booming with examples just like this, from both smaller and larger scale brands like Marc Jacobs, K18 Hair, wet n wild, and Elseve L’Oreal Paris. There are also many examples of successful influencers in this market who have been open to sharing their stories and best practices. 

Some companies are even tapping into their internal employee network to create content that feels native. They are influencing the viewer to use their suggested products through unique and educational videos, but in a more organic way. Think about it, would you be more likely to purchase a product you see via a company name or through an actual person who is positioned as a thought-leader in the industry? Whether you’re using internal or external influencers to create TikTok content, you add credibility to your products and provide education (without that typical advert feel).    

How to create a TikTok strategy that’s #WINNING
You’re probably thinking how can beauty brands with such similar goals build a strategy that’s actually effective and uniquely your own?

Here are a few factors to keep in mind: 
- Experimentation: Even those brands that are well-versed in influencer marketing never stop learning. Figure out how to experiment in a strategic way, that is purposeful with clear objectives. This will allow you to fully take advantage of all this platform has to offer, along with harnessing benefits of its different content types, while keeping your brand on trend.   
- Choose creative influencers based on value and passion: Whether your influencer partner is internal or external, the most effective relationships are built on brand affinity and shared values. Having someone who is passionate on specific topics relating to your brand can really help shape effective content. For example, if your brand is focused on “sustainable beauty”, choose an influencer who is just as passionate about this area. The content creation will come naturally to them, and if they have passion, and existing content, they probably have followers with the same interests as well.  
Passion + Shared Values = Engaging Influencer Content 
- Use data to make decisions: Analysing metrics makes it easier to understand your influencer marketing performance. Keep in touch with your influencer partners and ensure you are reviewing their metrics. Have they gained followers, has engagement increased since they partnered with your brand, are more users coming from TikTok over to your websites? This helps validate current strategies and allows you to identify key areas for improvement. 

TikTok has become the newer, shinier toy in social media with over 1 billion active accounts, so before putting in the time and effort, approach it first with a clear goal in mind. What do all these active users want to see on TikTok? What is currently trending? Good question! Our Digital Marketing team are working together to delve into the virtual world of TikTok to bring you the latest beauty trends that are dominating the industry and shaping consumer needs. Keep a look out for our next blog in this series that will uncover the booming colour cosmetic trends!

Sources: 
https://blog.hootsuite.com/tiktok-analytics/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/tiktok-advertising/
https://www.tiktok.com/business/en-US/inspiration?industry=makeup-&-beauty
https://fanbytes.co.uk/skinfluencers-on-tiktok/
https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/article/tiktok-skinfluencers-disrupting-beauty-industry
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-reaches-a-billion-active-users-the-latest-milestone-for-the-app/607248/
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/tiktok-for-business/