Saturday 5 February 2011

Benefit Cosmetics and Social Media

Everyday we are surrounded by social media and no matter how hard we try we cannot escape it. Ever since the early 1990s, and the dotcom boom, internet usage has been increasing more and more, with “60% of UK households having internet access”[1].

Everyone is familiar with concept or social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Our guest lecturer from Base One showed us their social media landscape, and this was incredibly interesting to see all the different social media outlets and how they can be used by a company to communicate. We can find out the latest information about a person or business and what they have been up to. MySpace was the trend before Facebook, but that has since largely disappeared, with it being used more for music releases,

and new bands promoting themselves. The new phenomenon is Twitter, launched in July 2006[2]; it has reached over 65 million tweets everyday. Many organisations have a twitter page, but are they really necessary?

Benefit Cosmetics is a high end make up brand. It has a Facebook page, Twitter account, blog, and regularly emails its’ customers with promotions and information on new products. Their website shows that they are a fun brand and do not wish to take themselves too seriously. Their mission statement includes words such as “pesky” and “wacky” clearly showing that the brand still reflects the people that first came up with the ideas. Benefit markets their products and services predominantly to women aged 18 – 35 and this is reflected in their pricing strategy (products are premium priced between £9.50 and £29.50).

Benefit also has a YouTube page, these videos show tutorials on how to get the most out of their products, and also behind the scenes footage. These many ways of having social media widely available means that anyone can watch these videos, and get the latest updates on products.

Benefit also have a LinkedIn page, this is here for the more professional approach, although it is not updated as much as their Twitter or Facebook page. LinkedIn is not as well-known as the other platforms of social media, but it is expanding at an alarming rate. It was launched in 2003, but has taken many years to expand to where it is today.

However, is a Facebook page really necessary, do Benefit really need to tweet everyday with their latest updates, and is the blog fundamental to keeping customers interested? The company would not necessarily fold if they chose not to, nonetheless is this essential to their marketing strategy, or are they just following the crowd?


[1] McStay, A., 2010. Digital Advertising. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

[2] Arington, M., 2006. Odeo Releases Twittr. 1st Edition. USA: TechCrunch. Available from: http://techcrunch.com/2006/07/15/is-twttr-interesting/ [Accessed 4 February 2011].


1 comment:

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