There’s no denying the power of an active and engaged social network, and its impact has never been stronger than it is today. As we continue to rely on digital connections during this otherwise isolating time in our fight against COVID-19, our social communities—albeit via Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, or beyond— have helped to foster the human connections we’re so desperately missing while staying at home. While the success of all-encompassing social platforms has proven to be influential for users and brands alike, the emergence of niche social communities—like YouCam Makeup’s in-app community “YouCam Community”, has proven to be a new type of social outlet for beauty lovers to unite.
As a $532 billion dollar a year industry, it’s clear the beauty community is a vast and dedicated one. In recognizing the growing popularity of beauty across editorial, video, and influencer content, Perfect Corp. identified an opportunity to build a more targeted fan group, and dedicated beauty-loving social community—one that recently amassed over 47 million registered users globally. In recognizing the synergies between a virtual try-on beauty experience and a supportive, empowering social community, Perfect Corp. found a way to merge the two in order to create an immersive virtual beauty universe within the YouCam Makeup experience. The result was an interactive world of virtual beauty try-on combined with a beauty-loving social community that united fanatics in a special beauty-centric digital world.
For YouCam Makeup, the in-app content and features are extensive spanning three major beauty categories including makeup, hair color, and skincare. The in-app experience is flooded with digital content and virtual try-on features that help to strengthen the YouCam brand voice within the app community and attract and retain loyal beauty users. This combination of a targeted niche group, with which you listen, learn, and connect with through content, is the key to building a loyal social community. YouCam Makeup’s in-app offerings include:
- Interactive Editorial Content: Daily posts help to keep users up-to-date on beauty news and trends, and are enhanced by virtual try-on features that bring the content to life in a whole new way for viewers.
- Virtual look and product try-ons: Users can digitally try on complete beauty looks and specific products across a complete range of color cosmetics for eyes, lips, and face from top beauty brands like Estee Lauder, Benefit Cosmetics, and Ardell Beauty. The real-time, hyper-realistic virtual try-ons are powered by advanced AR and AI technologies that deliver digital results that rival physical try-ons.
- Hair Color experimentation: Users can experiment virtually with a rainbow of hair colors to find your best match. AItechnology and deep learning help to identify the unique movement of individual hair strands and display accurate gradient coloring on hair for a hyper-realistic virtual effect. Precise color-matching detection also ensures that the hair shades are adjusted depending on the specific base color.
- Skin Score: The instant skincare diagnostic helps users track their skin health and targeted concerns like spots, winkles, texture, and dark circles. This AI-powered experience generates specific product recommendations that target and help treat the specific areas of concern.
- Livestream beauty tutorials: The interactive livestream channel within the YouCam Makeup app is a place where users can tune in to live beauty how-tos hosted by a curated network of YouCam influencers. Viewers can engage with show hosts through likes and comments, as well as virtually try on the looks created during the show, further building on the human connection.
- On-demand beauty consultations: YouCam’s Beauty Advisor 1-on-1 service re-imagines the beauty counter experience through an interactive live video chat with a beauty professional. Users can connect to the free on-demand service to receive a personalized beauty consultation, complete with virtual product and look try-ons, directly from their phone.
By giving users the ability to try-on and experiment with products and looks, play with advanced features like skincare analysis, all while sharing and connecting socially with fellow beauty lovers, creates a hyper-engaged social community rooted in beauty. This interactive digital-first platform elevates the user experience by linking users to fellow beauty lovers and instantly building on a common interest that kept users coming back to both play and connect. The strategic combination of beauty, technology, and community which the users can trust, is what makes the YouCam Makeup community successful and thriving. This encouraging and loyal beauty community also proves impactful for shoppers seeking brand and product recommendations. It’s proven time and again that the word of our friends and peers has the biggest impact in steering our purchase decisions. This presents a huge opportunity for brands to get their products listed within the YouCam Makeup app and in front of these loyal beauty users to try, share, and shop.
With a large social community, comes a lot of feedback. And when your social community is segmented group united on a common interest, like beauty, this feedback proves increasingly valuable in helping to understand consumer behaviors and preferences. The key is to listen to the feedback and reactions of a core group of users and shape—and re-shape—your communication strategy to be most impactful. While listening is essential in building and serving a strong social community, you must also establish an original brand voice that resonates with the users and provides them with something they cannot get anywhere else. It’s imperative to offer a range of content that speaks to every type of beauty-lover within your community and reminds them their voices—and requests—are heard. This is a critical piece in building up community loyalty and trust in your brand.
While social media presence is most certainly part of the branding process, finding targeting social communities with a common interest further segments the market for a more impactful message that reaches your target demographic. These niche social communities serve as a new channel for customer acquisition and while mobile connections were previously dominated by younger generations, the social norms adopted during the pandemic have resulted in all generations—young and old—turning to mobile connections as their lifeline. Digitally-savvy brands must quickly find ways to infiltrate these segmented social communities and leverage the interactive digital experiences offered by brands like YouCam Makeup, in order to get in front of their consumers in a digital-first environment.
