A look into Kylie Jenner’s success in the competitive beauty industry
In 2019, Kylie Jenner was named the world’s youngest self made billionaire at just twenty one years old.
Kylie Jenner is the youngest member of the renowned Kardashian/Jenner clan, starring in the hit reality TV show Keeping up with the Kardashians. The 22-year-old began to build a desirable following of dedicated fans on multiple social platforms as she became a global influencer and cornered the beauty market.
Unlike most beauty brands with an online presence, Kylie is the ultimate influencer. She understands the power of the personal brand and uses her own face to promote her makeup online. She’s tapped into the demographic of millennials and Gen Z’ers who are passionate about new trends and grew up with social media. Due to her relatable personality, she evokes trust between herself and her followers as she maximises her audience reach. For example she’s referenced Mean Girls and used slang lingo when creating products such as the ‘On Wednesdays’ matte LipKit and ‘Damn Gina’ lip gloss.
The Kylie Cosmetics brand is so powerful as the consumers are her social media followers and also her real fans. They wants to know everything about her life and constantly view every post. The beauty mogul utilises this as she promotes her collections through creating online content.
According to a recent report by Google, 59.6% of Generation Z actively uses Instagram, in contrast to Facebook (52.8%).
Although Kylie Cosmetics has its own business Instagram account at 23.3m followers (still surpassing competitors like Too Faced Cosmetics with 13.3m), Kylie also likes to inundate her main channel followers with makeup. She is the fifth most followed person on Instagram, with 162 million followers, and so she continually posts product shots endorsing her brand.
Snapchat and Twitter
Whether in the form of selfies, colour swatches or packaging previews Kylie uses Snapchat stories to entice her fans into buying her products. She breaks down the makeup in a simplified manner so her followers can create a similar look. She uses Twitter to engage and reply to her followers, while keeping them up to date with new releases.
The impact Kylie has on these platforms is immense, as Snapchat stock lost $1.3 billion after she declared the app dead in 2018.
YouTube and Collaborations
We have reached the Influencer Era where people depend on influencer’s opinions instead of traditional ads, on products they should buy. As a marketing tool, Kylie creates product-filled videos, with popular Youtuber’s.
However, brands need to understand that people can tell the difference between authenticity and paid ads.
When not using her own face, Kylie works with her family to produce collaborative collections and creates tutorial videos on her Youtube channel showing how to easily recreate the look.
Although her online marketing methods are not massively original, she has a clear vision and understands her target audience’s needs, therefore she knows how to approach and appeal to them. She takes her brand to the next level by producing continuous content across all platforms that educate and excite her community.
