The Reason Youtube’s Beauty Gurus are so Powerful

It’s unavoidable. Every time I walk into the beauty aisle, I’m amazed and overwhelmed over the sheer quantity of products.

It’s like having a mini identity-crisis. Do I want matte or glowing skin? Would I describe my skin as fair or porcelain? What even is the difference between full and voluminous lashes?

My goodness, it’s a lot to take in. And being a college student, my money is pretty tight. I’m not going to spend money on something that does not perform well or I’ll never use.

Enter Youtube’s Beauty Gurus.

This sector of Youtube is incredibly popular among women. It focuses primarily on reviewing makeup products and putting them together into a cohesive look.

The creators behind these videos, known in the Youtube community as Beauty Gurus, establish a trust within their fanbase. Their personalities entice people in, and their honest recommendations keep people coming back for more.

These influencers, with millions of followers on social media, have the power to tell their audience if a product is even worth buying.

Fans wait at the end of every month to hear what their favorite Youtubers are loving in their monthly favorites, a round-up of the products they’ve been using that month.

People want to know what these beauty authorities are loving, and they keep tuning in to find out with every new product release.

These Beauty Gurus set trends that then makes the products fly off the shelves or get bumped to the sale rack.

And as we know in business, money is power.

This trust with their audience is because these gurus have established authority among their viewers. This phenomenon is due to the audience looking towards these creators as opinion leaders.

Opinion leaders, simply put, are someone people listen to. They are active within a certain community and have expertise on a subject, which people take as the gospel truth.

If a company gains the approval of an opinion leader, they most likely win their audience too. The company only has to target one person to potentially gain millions of fans.

This idea is not unique to Beauty Gurus either. This two-step flow of communication has been studied since the 1940's.

And makeup brands know this too. That is why they rush to send out extravagant Public Relations packages of new products to get hopefully get some publicity in an unboxing video.

Brands will even partner with Youtubers to monetize off their audience and influence within the beauty community.

Let’s take a look at one influencer in particular: Jaclyn Hill.

Jaclyn Hill started her Youtube channel in 2011 while working at MAC cosmetics and a freelance makeup artist. Almost 6 years later, she has nearly 4 million subscribers on Youtube, 3.9 million followers on Instagram, and over 750,000 followers on Twitter.

In July 2015, Jaclyn partnered with Becca Cosmetics to create a highlighter called Champagne Pop.

It broke Sephora’s record by being the most purchased product on the first day of release. Her fan base even shut the Sephora website for a few hours due to the amount of web traffic it was receiving.

Her status as a opinion leader in the beauty community validated this product and made it a hit before people even tried it. I even got sucked into the hype.

To the clueless people like me, these Youtube Beauty Gurus help me navigate what is even worth my time and money, like my personal compass in the makeup aisle.

To the makeup companies, Beauty Gurus are the key opinion leaders to gain millions of followers and customers.