Community Decoded: How Glossier's Community Strategy Works

The Glossier beauty community

For our first episode, we're diving deep into one of today's most successful community-driven brands: Glossier.

If you’re a beauty & skincare or DTC fan, the brand needs no introduction. What started as a beauty blog, grew into a $1.2B company, thanks to a passionate fanbase who spread the word and  co-created best-selling products.

 

1. Co-creating products with superfans

Glossier is most famous in the industry for how effectively they leveraged Into The Gloss beauty blog readers for crowd-sourcing and product co-creation.

A typical product-sourcing post gets 300+ detailed comments. This feedback then informs product, packaging, copy and ad campaign decisions.

Quick example: when sourcing their best-selling moisturizer, Glossier wanted to go with jars for the packaging. Feedback from customers suggested jars were viewed as less hygienic, and the brand went with a pump. Other feedbacks they integrated was related to preferred products, texture and ingredients.

 

 

Good news is, you don't need a popular blog to start doing this.

Brands like Monki (H&M) and Superdrug are constantly polling their communities on social media to adapt their website, communication, social campaigns and featured products.

In our latest Brand Q&A, Monki's Head of Social Commerce told us how they've been using direct community feedback to continuously adapt communications during the COVID-19 lockdown.

 

2. Turning loyal customers into reps

Reps isn't a new concept in retail, especially in the beauty industry. But Glossier's version is - unsurprisingly - more community-driven than most.

The brand selects loyal fans that fit their brand and have an existing - albeit small -social media following (most of them have between 300 and 5,000 followers). Reps share their skincare routine and favorite products on their profile page. Their custom link gives new shoppers 10% off their first order.

This way, Glossier controls its image while leveraging their passionate customers for added business.

 

3. Generating social proof at scale

The Glossier social team excels at engaging their audience and sourcing customer generated content (UGC) daily. Fans are encouraged to share their daily Glossier look.

You only need to look up #GlossierIRL on Twitter to see it:

And #GlossierGirl on Instagram:

Here's the 2 key drivers behind Glossier's ability to generate mass UGC:

1. The brand's pop-culture-savy, fun and approachable tone on all channels is aligned with their younger audience and gets their attention
2. Glossier rewards that attention by replying to every mention and sharing customer content on all brand channels (social media, product pages, ad campaigns, newsletters...)

 

4. Clever use of customer tutorials & beauty routines

Tutorials are essential for any beauty brand. Not only does it showcase the product, it helps customers figure out how to make it work for them.

The Glossier blog started by posting beauty routines and #shelfies (where people post a picture of their top shelf with their favorite beauty and skincare products). It's what made the blog so successful in the early days.

No surprise then that the brand still heavily relies on sharing customers’ beauty routines and tutorials on social media:

If we were Glossier, we'd add the best how-tos to product pages. It's an easy way to feature additional social proof on one of your most strategic assets.

 

5. Creating community-powered ad campaigns

Glossier actually goes beyond featuring their customers on their social channels: they include them in national ad campaigns. This echoes the company's number 1 rule for community: "Make the Consumer Feel Seen".

It also adds a layer of authenticity and additional social proof to the brand's ads.

(Read their other 3 rules for building an engaged community here, by their CFO Henry Davies)

In short, the Glossier team is getting a lot of things right. Their community has been a crucial driver for acquisition and customer loyalty.

There’s a few more things we could have added like their smart use of reviews on product pages, their 18k member non-branded beauty community on Facebook… But we're sticking to 5 this time! With how fast they're moving, it's likely we'll have to revisit Glossier in a few months.

 

We’ll be back in a month, decoding a new brand community. In the meantime, you can read our post on how to get started and define your community project.