Within the $445 Billion beauty industry, brands who are taking a closer look at the ingredients that make up their products have gained much-deserved buzz for their approach in developing “better for you” skin care and makeup. For clean skin care brands, connecting with like-minded consumers requires an authentic beauty PR dialogue that’s stripped of the traditional bells and whistles used by the mainstream lines.

Industry insiders understand the conversation around beauty is changing, and those paying attention are already making adjustments on how they approach beauty PR and social media strategies. Just this year, Neutrogena kicked off the year with a fresh-face campaign featuring actress Kerry Washington, free from any photoshopping or touch-ups. They’re following the footsteps of major cosmetic retailer CVS, who has committed to rid their beauty aisles of any touched up imagery, and now has their “no manipulation” standard being followed by the brands they sell.  

As with advertising, the way we are approaching beauty PR is changing too, especially as the media landscape changes. The days of running product samples to traditional media outlets have evolved to include more opportunities to provide beauty and skin care advice to all types of media – including print as well as online, email, and of course, social media influencers.

For clean beauty brands, authenticity is a no-brainer, but implementing a beauty PR and social media strategy to mimic these brand values, while also thinking outside the standard beauty PR “checklist,” is key for successful campaigns.

Beyond Beauty With Social Media Influencers

It’s impossible to talk through a successful marketing strategy for beauty brands without including social media influencers. Beauty influencers have catapulted brands into the spotlight with makeup tutorials, unboxings, and product reveals. But for wellness brands, clean products are more closely related to self-care and wellness. This opens the door to work with influencers in various other categories, such as fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle.

Social media influencers in these categories provide the opportunity for a brand to stand out compared to traditional beauty influencers who review hundreds of products a week. The more you’re able to match influencers content and personal values with that of the brand, the more the products become a part of their daily rituals.

Take popular wellness influencer @ShutTheKaleUp, who’s content mostly focuses on food and fitness. But as her following grew, so did the type of content her audience was looking for. She regularly shares insights into her clean beauty routine, and how it affects her philosophies on clean eating and physical activity for overall wellness. Identifying influencers like this, whose personal values mimic that of the brand, offers further opportunities for relationships to grow – from product seeding to partnerships, to more promotional content in front of the right audience.

Beauty Pages May Shrink, but Opportunities for Coverage are Great

As the media landscape continues to evolve, and print magazines shrink, beauty recommendations don’t come from just one source anymore. We’re seeing entire brand spotlights in various types of media ranging from parenting to fitness, and even business/startup media. Gone are the days of the product-only pitch to the standard beauty editor list. Brands have much more to offer media and there are a lot more media beyond the go-to beauty books that want to hear from them.

Consider Dermstore, an e-commerce destination for the best in wellness and dermatologist-recommended skin care products. Dermstore has a wealth of product knowledge in the wellness space and can provide value for consumer media that goes further than just providing a product. By pulling from the brand’s expertise in skin care knowledge, Resound’s PR pros have built a PR program that goes beyond the product mentions by providing media with valuable input.

Genuine Beauty PR Content Wins for All Beauty Brands – but Especially those in Clean, Natural

For content marketers, authentic content is a known win-win for building brand credibility and likeability. For those in the wellness and organic beauty space, it’s the guiding light for developing a social and PR strategy that will resonate with their audience.

Priscilla Tsai, the founder of skincare company Cocokind, has built her brand’s clean reputation on regularly sharing her skin care issues on the brand’s Instagram account. By sharing her journey, followers get a look at real skin care issues and how the product line’s natural ingredients are helping to fix it, with real-time updates on progress. Cocokind reported at the end of 2018 they had doubled their followers from 45K to 95K, attributing the growth to the open, real dialogue on skin care they have with their community.

The media has also shown support for those who provide more genuine conversations around beauty, as we saw with Forbes spotlighting Cocokind’s unique approach. Even celeb-backed brands in the healthy products space like Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop are following beauty pr lessons by stripping back the glitz and glam to reveal their tried and true beauty rituals.

To discuss how our team can make noise for your beauty brand or product, please reach out here: makesomenoise@resoundmarketing.com.