Building your social media video presence part 3: Why visual content is the best option for beauty brand tutorials

Why video marketing?​

Typically, consumers usually turn to videos for “information, entertainment, and inspiration”,​ observed Alexandra English, Director of Marketing at Pixability.

On YouTube, 34% of beauty views are from tutorial videos. Exploring its popularity compared to text-based marketing, English pointed out: “Video creates an immersive experience that invites audiences to lean in in a way that text-based marketing cannot.”​

In today’s competitive and diverse marketing landscape, “a major appeal of video, for brands, is the time consumers are spending with brand-owned content compared to other marketing channels”.​

We don’t stop at one​

Consumers will engage with tutorial videos, for example, upwards of 30 minutes, and then opt to consume additional related videos too.

Particularly on YouTube, English confirmed that video creates an online customer journey that is “hard to replicate elsewhere”.​

For instance, a viewer could “watch a promoted teaser on a new product, then search for a product demo, then click on a related tutorial video about how to incorporate that product into a completed look, then turn to a influencer review of the product, and finally click on YouTube’s engagement elements to visit the website to purchase”.​

Cross-platform a viable option​

On average, Pixability sees brands use at least two video platforms. The most sophisticated brands, however, are executing campaigns on upwards of six platforms or more, across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest.

Cross-platform use by beauty and personal care brands is “absolutely”​ synonymous with higher rates of engagement and return on investment (ROI).

English emphasises that “campaign effectiveness [is] amplified when brands go cross-platform, across the majority of marketing objectives”.​

This strategy is becoming a popular choice as “a cross-platform approach allows a brand to follow consumers as they move from platform to platform throughout their day, benefit from social sharing to broaden reach and exposure, and also gather more data and insights about its audience in order to evaluate the campaign performance”.​

Risabae: A standout in social video​

Pixability places the spotlight on beauty influencer Risabae and highlights her as a key influencer in the beauty sphere when it comes to social video.

Commenting on what makes Risabae a standout against her competitors, English stressed that “her videos are high production value videos, which increases her credibility, and she makes videos according to her viewers’ needs, like summer vacation make up, or ‘make up for your photo ID’”​.  

Risabae also turns on auto-caption to make her videos available for English-speakers. In addition, by incorporating engaging elements into her make up videos such as displaying product information including the price and retail location of the products featured in the video, “it becomes easy for viewers to take action”.​

Where’s social video heading?​

Anticipating what will be the key trends and shifts in video marketing for beauty and personal care brands in 2018, English predicted: “More and more brands will adopt cross-platform strategies, and get more comfortable with producing video assets tailored to each video platform.”

Moving into next year, the industry can also expect to see “increased adoption of live-streaming video capabilities, as well as experimentation with virtual reality”.​

Also, from a strategic perspective, the video platforms will “continue to improve their attribution models to help brands tie online video to offline sales”,​ concluded English.