Although internet blogs can be flawed by misinformation and poor written skills, the information shared by consumers is invariably uncensored, honest feedback that communicates exactly what the consumer thinks about a brand or company.
In turn this feedback can be used to provide essential information for the research and development of the type of cosmetic products that consumers really want, finds a masters research paper written by Tiphaine Dumartinet, from the Toulouse Business School, in France.
Adopting digital strategy to identify key trends
Increasingly beauty brands are tapping into key consumer trends that fit in with lifestyle, cultural expectations, demography and fashion.
Staying on top of all these key factors has invariably proven a significant challenge to cosmetics research and development teams, because this traditionally taps into significant company resources and man hours, and ultimately costs.
However, Dumartinet warns that a company’s digital strategy must be carefully planned in order to maximize its impact.
“Any kind of monitoring project should be part of a digital strategy; the company must clearly define its expectations before embarking on such a project,” the research paper states.
The research also highlights the fact that many companies lack the basic knowledge on how to manage these expectations and implement a digital strategy, which means the most effective way to start out is to find a partner specialized in this area.
Blogging offers unrivalled communication opportunity
The internet offers a vast array of choice for bloggers, whether it be social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, the numerous beauty blogs that have sprung up of late, or else incorporating a blog into a company’s existing website.
On this subject, the research highlights the opinion of digital identity and internet specialist Sylvain Andrieu, general director of the company Grapheos.
“The use of agencies to monitor digital identity has two primary objectives: The first one is to monitor and analyze information about blogs,” states Andrieu. “This can include various medium such as videos, social networks, news websites and reviews.”
“The second is to act on the blog content. Several techniques are then used, such as fictional blogging or buying advertising space on blogs.”
Dumartinet’s paper also outlines clear examples of how blogging is influencing the direction that a number of cosmetics companies are now taking to communicate about both their brands and their companies’ vision in the French market.
Underling this, the paper singles out the recent launch of a beauty blog from Lancome, entitled magnifique-women.com, the addition of the ‘Les Vegetaliseurs blog to the Yves Rocher website, to stress environmentally friendly initiatives the company is taking, together with the ‘Thierry Mugler Womanity’ blog, which invites bloggers to share their ideas on their vision of feminitity.
Although blogging remains a niche means of communicating and marketing to consumers, it is clear that developing a clear strategy and getting online as soon as possible will enable companies to take advantage of a highly targeted tool.