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The State of Influencer Marketing in the Beauty Industry

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Beauty is one of the leading sectors to have embraced influencer marketing. One of the main reasons for this is that beauty is incredibly visual, and influencer marketing (and, indeed, social selling) works best in a visual medium.

Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that Instagram is the social platform where you find most beauty influencers. However, you will also discover many beauty influencers who love sharing videos across YouTube and, to a lesser extent, TikTok.

In this post, we look at the state of influencer marketing in the beauty industry, with particular reference to various studies.

Over 1,000 Beauty Influencers Operate Across Instagram and YouTube

Upfluence’s survey (in May-August 2022) found that 1,288 beauty influencers were active on Instagram, 1,090 on YouTube, and 167 on TikTok.

There was considerable overlap between the platforms, however, with 1,034 influencers appearing on both Instagram and YouTube, 165 on Instagram and TikTok (meaning nearly every TikTok influencer also operates an Instagram account), and a smaller 123 creating content on YouTube and TikTok.

Unfortunately, Upfluence’s report didn’t report the number of influencers popular on all three platforms.

Although There Are Fewer Beauty Influencers on TikTok, They Have the Most Followers on Average

As we have seen, there are considerably fewer beauty influencers on TikTok than on Instagram or YouTube. However, the TikTok influencers have the highest average follower numbers.

Upfluence found that TikTok beauty influencers averaged 767,651 followers, compared to 431,310 on Instagram and 417,134 on YouTube.

The U.S. Has More Beauty Influencer Followers Than Anywhere Else

Upfluence broke down beauty influencer follower numbers by location (although they only showed results for the U.S., UK, Canada, France, and Brazil.) It’s important to remember that you can’t access Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok in some countries, including China. TikTok is also banned in India, and Instagram is banned in Russia.

Beauty Influencer Follower Numbers By Location

Beauty influencers in the U.S. average 539,038 followers on Instagram, 593,412 on YouTube, and 1,556,910 on TikTok. Former President Trump would have upset many fans of beauty influencers if he had carried out his threat to ban TikTok from the U.S.

Brazil averages 396,935 beauty influencer followers on Instagram, 434,681 on YouTube, and 305,602 on TikTok. This shows a considerably different profile to the U.S., with TikTok much less used in the Latin nation.

The U.K. averages 323,490 beauty influencer followers on Instagram, 323,490 on YouTube, and 559,840 on TikTok.

Canada averages 300,449 beauty influencer followers on Instagram, 419,078 on YouTube, and just 150,677 on TikTok.

France averages 122,570 beauty influencer followers on Instagram, 202,455 on YouTube, and 315,942 on TikTok.

These figures are interesting when you compare them with the percentage of adult internet users in these countries who follow all types of influencers. According to the July 2022 Global State of Digital Report, 41.1% of Brazilians claim following influencers as the main reason for using social media, as do 21.0% from the U.S., 20.0% from France, 19.5% from Canada, and 18.3% from the U.K.

Beauty Micro-Influencers Have the Best Engagement Rates on Instagram

This is another case where the results for beauty influencers roughly mirror those for the population as a whole (just slightly higher at most levels). The general rule on Instagram is that the larger the influencer, the lower the engagement rate.

However, there isn’t as obvious a pattern with beauty influencers as the general population, and confusingly Upfluence uses different terminology from what we usually see.

For example, it defines Micro-influencers as having <15K followers (these are often referred to as Nano-influencers elsewhere) and has a category it calls Regular influencers (15K-50K). In addition, Upfluence describes influencers with 50K-100K as Rising, those with 100K-500K Mid-Size, 500K-1M Macro, and >1M followers Mega.

Beauty Influencer Engagement Rates on Instagram

According to Upfluence’s report focusing on beauty influencers, Micro-influencers have an average engagement rate of 2.7%, Regular influencers at 1.7%, Rising influencers at 2%, Mid-size at 1.6%, Macro at 1.8%, and Mega at 1.5%.

Male Beauty Influencers Have Higher Engagement on Instagram, as do Older Influencers

The vast bulk of beauty influencers and their audiences are female, and female beauty influencers have an average engagement rate of 1.8%. Although there are far fewer male beauty influencers on Instagram, they have a higher (2.3%) average engagement rate.

Similarly, although there aren’t all that many older beauty influencers and audiences on Instagram, the 35-54% age bracket has the highest engagement rate (3.3%), compared to 25–34-year-olds (2.5%), 18-24 year-olds (2.8%), and 0-17 year-olds (2.8%).

#makeup Most Popular Beauty-Related Hashtag on Instagram and YouTube (Popular on TikTok Too

Upfluence analysed the hashtags used on posts made by beauty influencers on the three platforms. #makeup came top on Instagram and YouTube and was third on TikTok. The more generic #foryou and #fyp beat #makeup on TikTok.

Other popular hashtags used by beauty influencers on Instagram are #makeuptutorial, #makeupartist, #beauty, and #skincare. Popular hashtags on YouTube included #skincare, #makeuptutorial, #naturalhair, and #haul. In addition to their top three, TikTokers used the generic #foryoupage and #beauty, #makeupartist, #hudabeauty, #learntiktok, and #makeupartist.

Hair is the Most Used Keyword Used by Beauty Influencers on Instagram and YouTube

Although many of the hashtags used by beauty influencers on the platforms (particularly TikTok) were relatively generic, they used more targeted keywords in their posts.

  • Popular Instagram keywords included hair, skin, makeup, palette, curl, style, lash, eye, foundation, powder, and skincare.
  • Their beauty influencers’ most popular keywords on YouTube were hair, makeup, haul, skincare, summer, skin, routine, try, and tutorial.
  • The TikTok keyword breakdown favoured makeup, skincare, hair, braid, hair tutorial, look, hairstyle, styles, and whip.

Kylie Cosmetics is the Most Popular Beauty Brand on Instagram

Statista highlights the leading beauty brands ranked by the number of Instagram followers as of March 2022. Kylie Cosmetics topped this list with 25.37 million followers at the time. Also extremely popular were Anastasia Beverly Hills (20.01 million), Benefit Cosmetics U.S. (10.17 million), NARS Cosmetics (7.96 million), and Ultra Beauty (6.84 million).

Of course, remember all we have seen above about how influencers with higher follower numbers tend to have lower engagement than their less followed/viewed counterparts.

The Ordinary — Most Popular Skincare Brand in the U.S on TikTok, by Follower Count

Statista also reported on the most popular skincare brands on TikTok in the United States in July 2021 by follower count. The Ordinary topped this list with 288,000 followers. Also popular were CeraVe (252,600), L’Oréal (232,200), and Glossier (114,800).