Online beauty communities could shape market trends

Online beauty discussion on social media and among other digital communities is changing the beauty market and could hold the key to future industry trends, however it is currently under-analysed. 

A new report from market research company Diagonal Reports has found that the number of informal online groups discussing beauty has seen major growth in recent years. These discussions are considered trustworthy by the consumer and represent traditional word-of-mouth recommendations moving online.

The groups analysed by the company include communities that discuss products, share advice on beauty problems and talk about personal experiences, however do not actively sell products themselves.

According to the report, these digital communities are becoming just as important as the product house and retailer when it comes to shaping the consumer beauty market, and are “helping to create new cultural formations”.

However although there is a high volume of informal discussion on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms about beauty, the industry knows very little about what is being said because the content is unstructured and complex to analyse.