There are 8 social media policies that Cosmetics Undustry should be aware.
1.Research
about different segments of target audience: It is the
priority rule for the success of the cosmetic companies. Company should
consider from customers’ views and research about what they expect the company
to have on different social media platforms and analyze the best platforms
working along with the different segments.
2.Focus
on cultivating company culture: Exposing on the social media
means cultivating its company culture. Every tool of the social media platforms
represents the image of the company. So it is important to keep the culture
value of transparency, consistency, connection, creativity and promptness.
3.Keep
Transparency: Social media is all about transparency. Especially
for the cosmetic industry, it is necessary for the company to show all cosmetic ingredients in the products. It could eliminate
the allergy and roseola. Choosing the best products and considering the
safety about customers can build the long-term trust.
4.Train
Employees on Social media: As a leading cosmetic company, they
have the ability to increase employees’ accountability and set expectations
while dealing with the social media. It is important to make every employee to
aware and update the new trends on the social media and let them be the core
people to create value for company and customers.
5.Focus
on communication and engagement instead of selling: As we all know,
customers become more passive online than before. It is important to keep in
mind for cosmetic companies to make customers motivated and active in the dialogue
on social media rather selling or advertising products.
6.Present
an additional value of the products: Cosmetic
industry is very competitive and it has a short life span for fashion trends. It
is important for customers to understand the additional value instead of the
products itself. Such as its Michelle Phan exclusively collection.
7.Keep
update on Pinterest and Instagram: In the cosmetic industry,
pictures talk and communicate. The secret of success in the cosmetic company is
keeping update the trends, popularity, and new products on Pinterest and
Instagram. Making customers stay connected and starts the conversation among
them.
8.Monitor
comments:
The cosmetic company’s responsibility on the social media is monitoring and
responding the either positive or negative comments from customers. It is
crucial to respond the comments timely and respectfully.
Cosmetics industry is best defined as a preparation
for external application on the human body and as a modification of the
physical look and conservation for beauty usage (Chile, February 2012). Cosmetics
industry has been controlled by a handful of multinational corporations in
early 20th century. The dominated world largest cosmetics companies
are The L’Oreal Group, The Procter& Gamble Company, Shiseido Company, and Estee
Lauder companies.
According to the
article written by Perry, the Cosmetics industry is composed of five product
segments with market share in the following
§Skin care 27%: Skin
care makes up about 27% of the cosmetic industry, including facial cleansers,
skin moisturizers, essence, eye cream, whiting products, body lotion, anti acne
products and anti-aging products.
§Make-up 20%: This segment
has vast sub-segment lines. It prefer to coloring products intended to enhance
people’s appearance. The categories are the following: primer, foundation, eye
shadow, eye liner, eye pencil, mascara and powder.
§Hair care 20%: The
majority products in this segment are shampoo, conditioners, styling products,
hair color and relaxer.
§Fragrance 10%: It
is the highest profit segment of the cosmetic industry, which occupies 10% of
the market share.
§Others 30%: This segment
is made up of products like toothpaste, deodorants, sunscreens and other
personal care products.
The Role of Social Media in Cosmetic Industry
Social media has
revolutionized the way that cosmetic companies connect and communicate with
customers worldwide. According to Sean Singleton, group managing director of
Skive Group, discussed about social media impacts on cosmetic show in Milan
last year. He presented some statistics about how powerful social media has
changed the cosmetic industry. For example, 200 million blogs and 95,000 beauty
blog has been posted and discussed among the age of 35 to 49 years old women.
So, Let us find out how the power of the social media can influence on Cosmetic
Industry.
High Customer
Involvement and Engagement
Compared to the
traditional media, social media is a two-way line communication between target
audience and the cosmetic companies. Social media provides high customer
engagement and enhance the communication with their customers. The cosmetic
companies are able to generate customer feedbacks via different online
presences. Additionally, cosmetic companies are able to use social media to
better target and approach their own customers and listen to different voices
from them.
High Brand Loyalty
Social Media has
been successfully used by beauty and cosmetic industries as a way to maintain
and build brands. Several social media platforms such as Tumbler, Pinterest and
Instagram have been utilized popularly by cosmetic companies to present new
products and gain brand loyalty from customers. In addition, social media
offers phenomenal cost-effective opportunities for the cosmetic industry to
build their brands."At least half of Twitter and Facebook users said they
had become more likely to talk about, recommend or purchase a company's
products after they began following the company on social media,"
according to eMarketer (The Atlantic, 2011)
Generate Sales
Social media is transforming
the way that cosmetic companies generate the sales. Cosmetic companies use the
power of world-of-mouth on social media to double their sales. According to the
Kingaby research, 79% of customers, who have online shopping experience of
cosmetics and beauty products, make their decisions and purchase the products before
researching and reviewing the comments from the company’s Facebook and Twitter
(Marks, 2012).
Suggested Social Media Platforms
on Cosmetic Industry
Facebook-Estee
Lauder-Your Face, You Style, Your Profile
As
a prestigious and global skin care and cosmetic company, Estee Lauder captured
an opportunity on Facebook to create an event called “Your Face. Your Style. Your Profile”. It was an even hold in June 5th
2010 that invited consumers who were 35 to 55 years old to have their make-up
done and a professional photo taken for them. After this evens started on the
Facebook, Beth Zurn, senior vice-president of global education and special
events, said “there were approximately 6200 customers in North America
participated in this event.” (Cosmetic World.com, 2012)
The purpose of
this Facebook event for Esteer Lauder is to connect with customers and provide
the right and the best profile photo for them with professional advices. As a
result, Estee Lauder has received extensive coverage in blogs as well as
attracting more young women to buy the products (Lee, 2011).
YouTube-Lancome-Famous Makeup Artist Michelle Phan
It is evident
that the significance of YouTube has dramatically increased in the cosmetic
industry year over year in video views. The best example to illustrate is the
official video makeup artist Michelle Phan who is authorized from Lancome.
Michelle Phan is top one most popular makeup artist on YouTube and she has more
than 3.2 million subscribers on her channel. In February 2010, Lancome discovered
the power of the Michelle Phan on YouTube and authorized her as the brand’s
first ever video makeup artists. Michelle Phan has created many special makeup
videos tutorials by using Lancome cosmetics and having Lancome products
giveaway to customers.
In January 2012,
Lancome launched the limited edition cosmetic products line called Michelle’s
Glamour Eyes Kits exclusively available online and Sephore, a French cosmetics
retail store. Lancome has successfully used the influence of YouTuber to
advertise their products and build the trust with customers.
Twitter-Bobbi Brown
When I consider which
company benefits the most from twitter in the cosmetic industry is Bobbi Brown,
a makeup line led by Estee Lauder. In the past two years, Bobbie Brown has implemented
a comprehensive social media strategy, resulting in a
177% growth in Facebook fans and a 243% increase of Twitter followers, as well
as launching of the brand’s Pinterest page (Cosmetic World, 2012). Instead of
promoting products on twitter, Bobbi Brown uses twitter to provide beauty tips
and advices to customers. The success of the Bobbi Brown is that they know what
customers’ needs on social platforms and how to engage with them on twitter.
Pinterest-Sephora-Sephora
Color Wash
Pinterest is a pinboard style photo sharing website that allows users
to share and collect photos of their favorite events, interest and hobbies.
Pinterest has become the third largest social media platforms; its main target
audience is women (Mashable, 2013). Sephora, a popular French chain of cosmetic
retail store, mainly sell beauty products. On their Pinterest website, they
provide fashion tips, images from Instagram, products demonstration, and
discuss about beauty trends with customers.
In April 2012, Sephora created a new competition on Pinterest called “Sephora
Color wash”. It was an event that encouraged users to create new board titled “Sephora
Color Wash” in hair and beauty category and pin the competition page on their
board pinning five images featuring their favorite color (Simple
Zesty, 2012). It would offer users a
chance to win $250 Sephora gift card. In this successful Pinterest campaign,
Sephora got an extremely high exposure for their brand among consumers.
Bibliography
Perry. (May,
2010). A Cosmetic Industry Overview for
Cosmetic Chemists.
I am writing this memo to perform an
online audit of the Zappos.com. In this report, I was able to determine and
analyze what kind of online presences Zappos.com currently have, who the major
influencers are and what feasible recommendations could apply to Zappos.com. I
chose this company because I have curiosity to dig out the secret of Zappos’
success and how they can become the leading online shoes retailer empire. It is
a great opportunity to learn how Zappos successful develop online marketing tools
and engage with their customers. Please let me know if this memo meets your
expectations. I am looking forward to your recommendations and feedback.
Company Background
Zappos.com is the most popular
and largest online shoes and apparel retail store based in Henderson, Nevade. It
was founded in 1991 by Tony Hsieh and Nick Swinmun. Zappos.com is premier
selling various selections of branded shoes, growing ranges of accessories, and
clothing. Beside the tangible products, Zappos.com is famous for its loyalty
business model and relationship marketing. What makes Zappos.com competitive
and distinctive is their excellent customer service in the industry; they
promote three benefits to customers, free shipping both ways, a 365-day return
policy without extra shipping and restocking fees and a 24/7 call center.
Official Website
Zappos has put a lot of efforts
in designing, optimizing and managing their official website in term of being
accessible and easy to navigate for customers. At the top of their website, it
has a search engine to allow customers to find their products in a second. On
the menu bar, the website list all different categories from shoes to
accessories. It also presents the popular shopping items as recommendations and
customers testimonials about their products (Zappos, 2013).
From my perspective, although
Zappos.com positions their unique selling point which is their extraordinary
customer service in the entire website, I found that Zappos still has
traditional online shopping website pattern. Their website is too informative
to distract my attention. It is important for Zappos.com to distinguish themselves
of the website between eBay, Amazon and other online shopping stores.
Facebook
Zappos.com uses their Facebook
page to update with the latest news, photos and products. They currently have
over 420,747 likes and over 6373 people are talking about them, as well as hundreds
of other likes for their individual posts (Facebook, 2013). What astonished me
the most is that they actually respond every single customer’s comment promptly
on Facebook. Zappos.com presents an image of outstanding customer service at
anytime and anywhere.
The second most surprising
thing I found is that Zappos was one of the earliest companies creating its
Facebook page in 2004 when Facebook was just established. It is a company that is
able to seize the trends of social media beyond other competitors. Additionally,
Zappos has put a lot of efforts on their Facebook page. Their theme, image,
branding and message coincide with website, blogs, and other online presences.
Twitter
Zappos initially encourages 500
employees to use twitter as a daily and causal communication approach instead
of promoting and marketing. Tony Hsieh commented that it was a great way to
help build their company culture, as well as connecting with customers. Tony
Hsieh-the CEO of Zappos.com is one of the most followed persons on Twitter with
2.67 million followers (Hsieh, 2012). There are several twitter accounts from
Zappos to function differently, such as Zappos customer service, Zappos
Stylists, Zappos Insights and so on.
Unlike other companies on
Twitter, all of the Zappos.com twitter accounts deliver a joyful company
culture, present employees’ own personality and communicate with customers and
followers. On the other hand, the company did a great job at responding to direct
tweets and replying every customer’s positive or negative comments.
Blogs
Zappos.com has various blogs
online, such as Zappos Family, CEO and COO Blog, Inside Zappos. Zappos’ blogs,
updated frequently, focus on fashion trends which may appeal customers’
eyeballs, some top-picked products, and introduce the new brands and products (Hsieh,
2009). The message and photos on blogs are consistent on their Facebook page
and Twitter. After I read many their blogs, I found that their posts were more
female-oriented, because women are their major customer base. By posting those
fashion trends blogs, Zappos.com has a desire to position their company as a
fashion hub.
The only issue I found is that
there are limited numbers of people to comment on blogs or even share to customers’
own Facebook. The reason of this problem is that Zappos only allow the users
who have Zappos accounts or Amazon accounts to comment on their blogs.
YouTube
As a social media savvy
company, Zappos.com has its own YouTube channel since March 2006 with only 3020
subscribers, 354 videos, and total 3.74 million video views. Zappos.com keeps
the overall outlook consistently. For example, they use “Zappos.com offers free
shipping and free return shipping with a 365-day return policy. Choose from
over 1000 brands, over 100,000 styles, and over 3 million items from our
warehouse full of shoes, clothing, handbags, and accessories!” in any channels
of their online presences.
Their channel mainly still
focuses on fashion trends, new brands or products introduction and even their
employees’ activities. At the same time, they encourage customers to upload and
share videos on YouTube about Zappos. Compared to eBay on YouTube, eBay has
double subscribers and views than Zappos.com. Additionally, the average view of
Zappos’ videos is around 800 to 1500 (Zappos, 2013). I have watched couple of
their videos; I found their videos were not interesting and entertaining enough
to attract customers. At this point, Zappos needs to switch the focus and
create more impressive videos.
Google+
Although Google+ is a new
social media platform online, Zappos.com has made numerous contributions to it.
They try to be consistently updating information on Google+, also presenting
similar content and pictures to it as same as Facebook and Blogs. Personally I
think that Zappos.com should tailor Google+ differently than other online
presences, instead of posting similar contents and pictures. Repeatable posts
could lose customers’ interests and attention.
Mobile Apps
I consider mobile apps as one of the most important online presences for
Zappos.com. It is available for IOS, Android and Kindle (Zappos, 2012). Zappos
has taken a customer-centric approach to capture more new customers and provide
a better navigation tool for them to shop. Having the mobile apps could not
only improve customers’ shopping experience up to the next level, but also can increase
customer loyalty and trustworthiness. Ordering products on Zappos mobile apps
could able to earn more VIP points, expedited returns and 24 hours shipping
(Kats, 2012).
Online Influencers
When we talk about accessories,
shoes and clothing, the very first thing coming into my mind are fashion,
trends, and brands. Since Zappos.com targets itself as a fashion leading
company on different online presences, other fashion magazines are the key
online influencers to Zappos at the same time. These magazines such as Elle, Trend
Hunter, and Vogue have huge influence on fashion trends and customers’ shopping
decision making.
The second online influencers
are Zappos’ suppliers and existing customers. The voices of customers and
suppliers online have ten times effective and valuable than advertising. Customers’
comments, posts, testimonials and suggestions can influence the credit,
reliability, and reputation of Zappos.com. Zappos.com has done a great job on
maintaining long-term and stable relationship with all three influencers.
Recommendations
Zappos.com,
as one of the leading online retail empires, has done an excellent job and has effectively
used different social media platform to communicate with customers. Zappos.com
has handled successfully on the security threat that was happened in Jan 2012.
Zappos has well established crisis management skills to comfort customers and
respond every single negative comment online immediately. There will be no
company like Zappos who could maintain its reputation and win customers back
after being hacked 24 million accounts information.
After
researching about Zappos, I recommend that it is better for Zappos.com to use
every online presence differently and try to avoid posting the similar contents
and pictures. In addition, establishing a long-term relationship with customers
and fashion leading online influencers are the key to increase their sales and
build their brand.
Bibliography
Zappos.com . (n.d.). Shoes, Clothing, and More-
Zappos.com . Retrieved February 8, 2013, fromhttp://zappos.com
Cause
marketing is type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a for
profit business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit.
Advantages
§Increase
the sales:
according to the study by Cone’s 2010 cause evolution study, 61% of customers
are willing to try the new brand which they never experience before if the
company is associated with cause marketing. While cooperating with the positive
image of nonprofit organization can boost the sales revenues and generate the
public awareness. The word of mouth in these cases will be so strong that the companies will
see a phenomenal growth in their sales turnover and net profits.
§Building a positive company image: cause
marketing campaigns can assist to build the public image to customers, which
leads customers to viewing the companies into a more trustworthy, reliable, and
charitable image.
§High employee’s involvement into the
cooperated non-profit organization: the cause marketing always requires
the companies’ employees to get involved in all perspective of the campaign. It
makes all employees bond together to be the volunteers to help each others. Additionally,
the companies itself can benefit from a rise in the morale of their employees
from tying up with the organization
Disadvantages
Companies’
mission statement and products doesn’t fit with the theme of the non-profit
organization: too many companies are too profit-driving to cooperated
organization. For example, in 2011, KFC has the cause marketing campaigns to
support Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. It has caused a public confusion about the relation between the
image of the Juvenile and the chicken. People and public confused about the
purpose and relation of a fast food chain store with the non-profit
organization
Recommendation
1.Choose
the right organization to fit: it is important for the companies to choose the
right organization to fit with the mission statement and their own related
products.
2.High involvement
in employees: make all the employees feel more value and engage in the
activities with the non-profit organization.
3.Company
should be special and environmental stability: It is necessary for the
employees to get involved in the activities who love doing the activities.
Social
media provides higher customer engagement and improves communication channels
between the company and their customers. The company will also be able to
generate customer feedback and reviews faster.
ØHigher
conversion ratios
Companies
are able to measure online traffic and social media marketing easily and in a
timely manner with numerous online tools available such as Google Analytics
(Social Media Today, 2012). They are also able to receive higher response rates
in providing products and services with lower costs.
ØMonitoring
competitors
Information
about competitors is available in all social media platforms. Companies are
able to read first-hand what consumers are saying on competitors’ Facebook
pages, Twitter, blogs and etc. With all this information, companies are able to
improve on their marketing strategies.
ØMarket
research
Companies
are able to conduct market research with their target audiences more
efficiently and with various different online resources (Canada Business
Network, 2012). They are also able to track trends and identify customer needs
using different digital methods more conveniently without high costs.
ØConnect
and attract new customers globally
The
use of social media enables companies to interact with customers from different
parts of the world. Using this powerful tool as a way to market to other global
consumers will attract and expand new target audiences.
ØWord-of-mouth/viral
marketing
Social media
functions as a spider’s network for company to generate public awareness.
Social media is an effective word-of-mouth marketing strategy to promote
companies with extraordinary spreading speed. Customers have higher trust level
on what the comments and feedback given by other customers on social media.
Disadvantages
ØHigh Expense
Traditional forms
of media such as television and magazines are costly to companies and their
marketers. Television ads can range into the hundreds of thousands of dollars
while print ads need to be published numerous times to be effective.
ØLack of Sustainability
Traditional media
lacks sustainability as ads are shown for brief periods of times. Companies and
marketers must continuously work to develop new ads often of the same brand to
hold consumers attention and make the message sustainable.
ØLimited Space
Television requires
your message to be delivered in 30 seconds or less which leaves customers
little time to understand the true meaning of a message. According to
contentgroup (2012) companies and marketers who do not have an interesting
story to tell should refrain from using traditional media at all. Time and
space that is available is in fact rented and not owned (The Content Market
Revolution, 2007). This means that they must pay a fee to the advertising
agencies to host their ad for a period of 15 to 30 seconds.
ØLack of Target Market Reach
Unfortunately
reaching the right target market can be extremely difficult through traditional
forms of media. Often time’s messages shown on television, placed in newspapers
or heard on the radio are geared towards one particular group. According to
Canadian blog site Six Pixels of Separation (2012) only 28% of the audience
knows about products and services advertised and the rest seldom pay particular
attention to the message.
ØAbility to Ignore & Clutter
Finally traditional media can easily be ignored and
messages are often cluttered. Mediums such as television and the radio can
easily be switched off or changed to another channel. Newspapers and magazines
can also be ignored by choice while the same can be said for SkyTrain and bus
advertisements.
Social
Media
Advantages
ØHigher
customer involvement
Social
media provides higher customer engagement and improves communication channels
between the company and their customers. The company will also be able to
generate customer feedback and reviews faster.
ØHigher
conversion ratios
Companies
are able to measure online traffic and social media marketing easily and in a
timely manner with numerous online tools available such as Google Analytics
(Social Media Today, 2012). They are also able to receive higher response rates
in providing products and services with lower costs.
ØMonitoring
competitors
Information
about competitors is available in all social media platforms. Companies are
able to read first-hand what consumers are saying on competitors’ Facebook
pages, Twitter, blogs and etc. With all this information, companies are able to
improve on their marketing strategies.
ØConnect
and attract new customers globally
The
use of social media enables companies to interact with customers from different
parts of the world. Using this powerful tool as a way to market to other global
consumers will attract and expand new target audiences.
ØWord-of-mouth/viral
marketing
Social media
functions as a spider’s network for company to generate public awareness.
Social media is an effective word-of-mouth marketing strategy to promote
companies with extraordinary spreading speed. Customers have higher trust level
on what the comments and feedback given by other customers on social media.
Disadvantages
ØNo
face-to-face interaction
Social
media lacks the formal face-to-face interaction that can come from one-on-one
company and consumer meetings.
ØTime
commitment and management
Companies
will have to commit to maintaining and updating digital/social media networks
to provide necessary feedback to customers; these procedures are time consuming
for companies.
ØOnline
public complaints and bad reviews
Companies
have limited control of the online negative public complaints from customers.
According to the Retail Consumer Report, conducted online by Harris Interactive
in January 2011 among 1,605 online customers, it showed that 68% of customers
having a negative review got a response from the company and 18% of these
people ended becoming loyal customers. These negative comments can cause 21% of
customers that decided not to buy any products from the website.
ØSecurity
issues
In January 12,
2012, Zappo official website got hacked and was stolen 24 million client’s
information, including names, address, billing, shipping address, phone number,
even the last four digits of credit card and online password. Luckily, Zappo
stored this data in a different file. These online companies have caused the
security issues that not only can reveal personal information, but also can
increase the customers and society chaos.
Recommendation:
Traditional
media provides consumers with a better level of trust in what is printed while
social media provides the speed and convenience of getting information on the
go. There is no right or wrong of each side. To take advantages of each side is
depend on the company itself. If the company focus on on-line business, it is unnecessary
to go traditional media to promote itself. The most thing important thing for
companies is to how to take advantages of the social media and traditional media
effectively. Every company needs to find the key promotion selling point by
which media is the most effective and is most high targeted.
