April 25, 2017

Are Your Favorite Makeup Brands Spending Way Too Much Time On Social Media?

I must be getting old because I’m really amazed at the amount of time makeup brands spend on social media nowadays. One of my reader’s, Sarah, pointed out that she wished brands spent more time on formulas versus promoting them on social media and I found myself nodding in agreement.

I’m just amazed at how much time and energy goes into promoting an eyeshadow palette or a mascara release nowadays. There’s Snapchat where hundreds of daily clips are uploaded from a variety of different people that work at the brand showing sneak peeks, swatches, and tutorials featuring whatever the release might be. Not to mention on Instagram where we get beautiful high resolution shots of the release on a variety of adventures like at some tropical secluded beach with pink sands and the ocean in the background, a perfect aqua hue or under the Eiffel Tower tucked into a basket of croissants. Hell, that palette goes on more trips than the average person does haha…! Apparently, when you do some major release that means it’s time to travel all around the world with it.

I’ve become a bit jaded as a blogger so, I see all these promotions and I tend to roll my eyes slightly at it because I feel it’s a tad overkill. But I understand they are essentially using a free medium to promote sales and who wouldn’t utilize that kind of business model to do so? It’s a no brainer making money across social media right?

But are your favorite makeup brands spending way too much time on social media to a point it gets annoying?

I think if you aren’t seeing the logical business side of it, it can be very annoying to see the same thing promoted for over a month. It gets to be too much. I start to find it annoying and I just want to unfollow when I hear about so and so palette again and again and again and again……

You also have to take into consideration they are cross promoting across different time zones and traffic peaks. Which means, if they post at 9 AM EST not everyone on the West Coast is privy to the Tweet, Instagram, or Facebook post they did which means they go in yet again at around 12 PM EST and re-post so, they can reach a wider audience. Not to mention Internet traffic peaks at certain times of the day and they are also taking that into consideration when posting across social media. Believe me, their posting schedule isn’t willy nilly like most of us. The average social user will post any damn time it takes their fancy to do so. But brands are planning their posts for certain times in the day that they know will get them the most exposure. They have the posting down to a science because let’s face it, this is marketing 101 for them.

If I was a big business, I’d totally do the same thing so, I can’t really fault their force feeding their latest release down my throat every minute on the minute. However, I can’t lie and say I don’t sometimes get annoyed by it.

I also have to take into consideration their demographic is a lot younger, sometimes a little more gullible, and are easily fed the frenzy of a new release.

What do you think?

Are your favorite brands spending way too much time on social media?

Does it annoy you?

Or do you totally understand that this is a business and a business has to make money?

Do share!

About the Muse

Isabella MuseIsabella is just an average everyday geeky girl who doesn’t blend her eyeshadow correctly, wears too much blush, and hopes she never finds her holy grail products because she likes the thrill of the chase so much. Her mission is to bring you super honest reviews on makeup, skincare, fragrance and all things beauty. She’s in no way an expert on the topic and she sure as hell isn’t a super model. But she’s passionate about makeup and is seeking like-minded individuals that like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and ones that enjoy spending hundreds of dollars at Sephora without feeling buyer’s remorse. If you’re that person feel free to reach out and leave a comment or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Bloglovin‘.

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Comments

  • Maria

    I agree. Nowadays many brands and beauty bloggers on IG post the same picture many times and from different angles of a blush, eye palette, etc. it is very repetitive.

  • Liz

    Okay I get the social media but I don’t get the extravgent and massive PR packages they send to Youtubers . And sending them on trips. And it doesn’t seem like just huge people. I always wonder how much money they spend on that stuff. I totally get sending some of the new products but every shade of every product and then other accessories the public can’t buy anyways. That’s the part I don’t understand.

    • Hayley

      Yesssss. Like why do they need to send youtubers on expensive vacations?!

      • Maria

        I agree. It does not make sense. Instead of vacations, they can lower prices on some of their products.

  • Corissa

    My biggest issue is all of these extravagant trips that these brands are taking these “influencers” on. There is no way these people can say that their opinion is not swayed by that. It has become so out of control these days.

  • Maria

    And many of them use the same words like gorgeous and highly pigmented and must have. Ha ha.

    I know Muse you are honest in your reviews and we can trust you.

    • Isabella Muse

      lol! 😀 yeah highly pigmented is pretty common 😀 aw thanks Maria flattered!

  • Jeremy

    It’s so annoying every time get that damn notification of ‘Stila cosmetics started a live video’ I wanna smack them with their flimsy packaging and scream

    • Isabella Muse

      LOL this is Tarte lately, they constantly have snapchats that drive me bonkers! Love them so much but it’s like, “Guys, ENOUGH!”

  • Susan

    Yes, it’s annoying how frequent it is. I also find the excessive PR perks that have zero to do with the product to be very off-putting.

  • Susan

    It is annoying. I find most social media mentions and reviews to be either (a) unboxings only and not reviews, or (b) wildly prejudiced in that EVERYTHING is the blogger’s/vlogger’s Holy Grail, perfect, amazing, etc. in a poorly-acted attempt to get more free stuff.

    Muse, I trust you, Beauddiction, and one or two others.

    • Isabella Muse

      aw thanks Susan, very flattered! Yea the unboxing can be a little annoying. I do them with my Sephora subscription and sheet mask subscription but not with entire hauls because it’s just a bit overkill. I did a few back in the day and it was like, “How is this helping the reader?” It’s not really. Unless you just love seeing someone’s mega hauls lol!

      • Susan

        Oh, I’m fine with seeing hauls and unboxings — what bugs me is when people call them **reviews**. You don’t do that, so thank you!

        • Isabella Muse

          ahhhhhhhhhh! I kind of sort of like unboxings but they can be annoying at times because I want to learn more about the product but it’s a quick “Look what I got!” And agreed, don’t call it a review when it isn’t!

  • Danielle

    Sadly this is what we’ve come to. For me, it bothers me that brands are more about the pretty packaging than the quality of the products. I have older products that I love that don’t match the quality of the brand now. They release the collections so fast now- I’d rather have less if it meant they’d invest more on the quality, but I guess what they save there they spend on social media/marketing.

  • Lauren

    Because they’re very likely all marketing to millennials, social is the best platform to do so but a few of them still don’t quite understand that selling just the product won’t really help, they need to create an experience. I think some of them are taking that theme a bit tooooo hard with the tropical trips (LOOKING AT YOU TARTE) but to their credit they do color theme their posts 6 at time with a specific palette to give an interesting feel to their Instagram feed.

    The biggest issue is cadence and how much is too much or too little and some just go waaaaaay too hard.

    I do think, though, generally Glossier gets it fairly right in understanding to go for experience over straight up overt shilling and diversifying their content and being more instructional with their product too.

    • Isabella Muse

      agreed Lauren on all accounts. Glossier indeed is subtle enough that it makes you want to buy something versus a lot of brands that are force feeding it. I enjoy the colorful photos but seeing photo after photo after photo of the same palette on the beach is like omg please no more!

  • Isa

    I think there’s something of a snowball/keeping up with the Jones thing going on. Brands used to be much less active on social media, or limit their posts to a more reasonable number. But as more and more brands begin to get on social media, and some brands even become known just via social media, it is becoming more difficult to get attention. To get attention in a noisy room, you have to shout. Posting every hour is kind of the equivalent when it comes to social media. Problem is, then everyone starts to do it and it all becomes overload for the consumer.

    I’m finding it to be overload anyway. Therefore, I don’t follow brands on social media. I just follow a few blogs and Youtubers (yours is one of my favourites!) That way, if something is truly noteworthy I’ll come to know of it eventually.

    • Isabella Muse

      first thanks Isa, flattered! REALLY! flattered 🙂 In a sea of blogs, social channels, I’m happy to be on your list. And I agree, there’s a sea of social posts lately and you have to keep up in order to be heard or “seen” and brands feel the need to push, push, and push some more so their content gets noticed but it can be damn annoying at times.

      • Isa

        Oh we should all be thanking you, for being inundated with social media the brands are putting out and helping the rest of us filter out the nonsense! 🙂

  • Danielle

    I think it’s more important for the Indie/lesser known brands because they aren’t sold at Ulta, Sephora, drugstores, etc. I’ve found out about different ones through YTers, beauty blogs (MUSE!!), etc. so in that respect it’s important, but for others it’s like, great scott! Enough already!

  • Pandora

    I get it. If I had my own company that’s exactly what I would do. Since social media has expanded so dramatically in the past half decade, it only makes sense to take advantage of free marketing exposure. However, that being said, how much content can one consumer absorb?? lol. It’s getting pretty intense these days. One company that is over the top, in my opinion, is Too Faced. I missed the super raved about Sweet Peach collection last year and was so bummed out, so when the hyped White Chocolate Chip palette launched, I purchased it without thinking. I ended up hating it and returned it. But over the weekend I ventured in the depths of Mordor (aka Walmart) hoping to find the Hard Candy Coconut Priming Stick. Of course, the only one left was already opened. I ended up getting the Flower Beauty (Drew Barrymore’s line) Shimmer & Strobe Highlighting Palette, and it blew me away. They spend practically no money on advertising so the funds can go into creating quality drugstore products. Highly recommend!! Their new rose blushes also look really promising.

    • Isabella Muse

      Agreed Pandora. I mean it’s essentially free advertisement. Granted, the reach isn’t as good as it once was due to paid reach on Twitter/Facebook/etc but if you have a huge fan base you’re reaching a good deal of people none the less. However, it can get very old, very fast when you’re following. It’s a bit too much! Yeah White CC was such a bust 🙁 and Flower Beauty def gets props for creating some very nice products. I have the rose blushes, haven’t tried yet but on the verge of doing so this week 😀

  • Audrey

    It absolutely is annoying. No need to play us for months and create this foaming at the mouth rush for your product and then have the nerve to say, “Ooops!!! Our site crashed and we ran out of product because we didn’t anticipate the demand!” Hellooooo! You spent the last month grooming everybody. What do you expect? Stop spending money on PR for influencers and concentrate on the quality of product that we normal people will actually be using and the world will be a happier place lol.

    • Isabella Muse

      Totally a marketing ploy. “Oops it’s gone but we are getting more” That’s bull. They def have product but holding out builds more hype!

      • Isa

        Yes, they certainly do have more product than they would like us to believe. Some brands in particular are really going for the headline of having X product sell out in X minutes. But there are many ways to engineer that. Is the product really that popular or are they only letting a very limited number be up for initial sale so that they can be perceived as being extremely popular, and drum up more hype for when the product is eventually, inevitably, “restocked” (with products from the same production run that are still sitting in the warehouse).

        The Tarte Swamp Queen Palette was recently restocked at the local Sephora and I was like huh? If something is truly Limited Edition, how can it be restocked so many months after? It wasn’t even a case of a late release over here; it was released last year around the same time as the US release.

        • Isabella Muse

          the Swamp Queen Palette was on sale, off sale, released, rereleased, that one was really marked weirdly!!!!!!!!!

  • Dora

    I think it makes sense — profit margins are huge in cosmetics, so the big spend on advertising is a good investment (and always has been). And what they’re selling is so . . . nebulous — like it doesn’t actually do anything or get you anywhere, it’s all aspirational, you know? Like, if I buy this lipstick/eyeshadow palette/whatever, THEN my life will be perfect. I don’t follow cosmetic companies on social media so I’m not getting all this stuff pushed at me, but guessing it’s really the perfect platform for them right now (and probably really annoying if you’re seeing it all the time). It’ll switch in due time. Like others have said, I trust you and Temptalia and take everyone else with a huge grain of salt.

    • Isabella Muse

      I agree. It’s basically free advertisement as well so, yeah why not take advantage although, if you do follow the accounts it can be very annoying at times 😉 Aw thanks Dora, VERY flattered!

  • J

    I agree! I don’t use much social media (just instagram and facebook), and I’ve unsubscribed from pretty much ALL makeup brands on instagram except maybe 3. That, I can handle 🙂 I’m just annoyed and tired of seeing massive amounts of other ‘stuff’ that I neither want or need! Love your thoughtful posts!

  • Robin

    I don’t think or maybe they don’t care that they are burning out their fan base.

    All of the social media “shouting” is giving me migraines and I think consumers are starting to look for quality instead of falling for the hype. Once you’ve been burned by a poor performing product, your first thought is not, “oh I can’t wait to get the new item from Too Faced or Tarte since the last palette was crap”.

    Oh I now know what they sound like!!! With all the heavy promotion companies are doing, it’s like how QVC sells products!! Limited time, once it’s gone, it’s gone, folks this will not last through the day… Companies shoving their messages down our throats via social media are this generation of qvc hosts and car salesman!

  • kjh

    Grossly, I eschew all SM. I understand it’s value in context for color cosmetics, but only never look at brand’s IG, Twitter, Snapchat. I don’t like/do Facebook and have seen it destroy lives. I rely on two to three bloggers. Two are tops for honesty, not relying on the drumbeats and drum rolls. One is you. If I like something, I might access SM though google. Occ a YTV. Addiction to SM is a very real problem, not to mention a major personal time suck. My manager at my night job spends her time on SM or the phone, and invariably cries three times a night. Hard to respect that work ethic. Call me a Luddite. Fine with me.

  • genevieve

    Yep – you have nailed on the head Isabella – I just want the brand to do its job and that is to provide an excellent product that doesn’t need hype to sell it because it is just great.