Feed Work: Brand Founders Discuss Social Media Supervision

In this edition of Beauty Independent’s ongoing series posing questions to beauty entrepreneurs, we ask 11 founders and executives: Who’s in charge of social media at your brand?

Francisco Gimenez CEO and Founder, eSalon

We have a very different take on social. Rather than having one team responsible for organic and a separate team responsible for paid, we have one integrated team that approaches social holistically. This structure helps ensure that we're applying any learnings that we're getting across all social campaigns, especially since paid social media is one of our most successful channels of new customer acquisition. Our campaigns and media spend are [handled] internally with clear performance goals and managed very closely - even intra-day - to make the proper adjustments and react as a quickly as possible. We have also worked on the automation of the day-to-day management of these campaigns from the budgeting and cost bidding given how dynamic these channels are.

Allison Grossman Co-Founder, The Seaweed Bath Co.

We manage social media in house: It's me. For us, social is a great platform to interact with both fans and new potential consumers about our brand and what we love. Being a startup, we are very scrappy and flexible in our roles. As a founder, it's fantastic to be able to interact with consumers in an informal setting.

Sandra Weir CEO and Founder, Gloss Naturals

I do not manage my own social media. I hired a college student who manages our social media collaboration requests. I felt that a young person would be more in tune with the rapidly changing social media outlets. Also, the person I hired is an accomplished writer and artist and, therefore, much more creative.

Brittney Flank Co-Founder, Frosting Company

We manage our own social media because it is an important tool that allows us to connect directly with our audience. No one knows the Frosting Company better than we do, and it is important for us to be hands on with our audience. We feel it is a necessary for us to manage our own social media because it helps us build brand awareness, engagement and exposure while connecting with people from all around the world.

Lisa Goldfaden Vice President of Marketing, Goldfaden MD

Our social media is handled by Matte Black, a brand marketing agency and creative studio in Los Angeles. Matte Black consists of storytellers who create streamlined strategies, campaigns and content. Most of our content is still created and written by Lauren [Goldfaden] and myself, but Matte Black helps us to streamline the messaging, engage influencers and tell our story through beautiful imagery. We decided to join forces with Matte Black three years ago as we have a similar vision in that we aim for an edited natural elegance with an emphasis on the key standout pieces that make the product and brand so unique. Having multiple team members allows a true crafted story to be told.

Georgina Tzavaras CEO and Formulator, Gia Minerals

We manage our own social media. I actually manage it myself. I feel that nobody knows our business better. Because I’m passionate about what I do, I think that comes through in my storytelling on social media. I feel that, if I were to hire someone to take care of the social media, I wouldn’t be as in control of what is being put out there. I want to bring my own perspective. I try to do a post a day except for Sunday. I find that anything to do with color, especially anything to do with seeing the product on someone and seeing swatches, is really important. If you just put a lipstick up and you don’t show a swatch, how do they know what it looks like on? We always try to be very fresh and it’s important to understand your online presence. I do a lot of homework to see what’s going on and what people are looking for. If you looked at what I was doing a year ago, it’s a lot different from what it is now.

Holly McWhorter Co-Founder and Co-Creative Director, Plant Apothecary

We have a digital media strategist in-house who handles creating all of our social media, and we are about to bring on a social media intern. We started out having an assistant in-house doing it. That was going fine, but then we decided to try having an outside company do it. We just didn’t feel what they were doing in terms of the visual content was up to our standards. [Co-founder] Bjarke [Ballisager] and I both come from design and architecture backgrounds, and have done photography, sometimes professionally. We have very strict standards. We have an idea of what the brand should look like and what it should not look like. It’s not always easy for someone to get that if they aren’t working with us directly. We might outsource again, but, at least for now, it might work better to have someone in-house. We like to shoot brand imagery, and it works better to have someone in-house seeing that and commenting on that.

Sacha Roberts Founder, Aussie Bronze

We do our social media ourselves, and it's the bane of my existence and a necessary evil, if I'm honest. I did have a social media group in the beginning with my former brand name bronzeBitch, but it didn't generate sales, so I decided to spend the money elsewhere. I've just completed a social media course that had five sessions, and learned about advertising with Facebook and also purchased an online Instagram course. Keeping up-to-date via Facebook business groups has been really helpful. I'm learning and watching what others do, trying to keep it real and on pointe with our branding.

Lauren Jin Founder, CLĒ Cosmetics

We use an outside consultant for social media. Although I may oversee all aspects of my brand/company, I am not able to do everything. I was fortunate enough to find someone who understood our brand's vision and aesthetic. The best way we were able to communicate in the beginning was for me to draft up some mood boards about CLĒ and the lifestyle imagined within the CLĒ girl's world. We are communicating with each other constantly. It is a cross between image researching, open discussions and just sharing images that catch our eye. That's the best part about social media, it's this rapid reaction to visual content and how we want to visually communicate and curate what CLĒ is. My academic background is fashion design, but I also have a hobby of figure drawing and painting, which is reflected in our social media aesthetic.

Mimi Kim Founder, Biodara

We choose to personally handle our social media because Biodara is an extension of who we are. It’s a part of us, our philosophy and lifestyle that we are sharing with our followers.  It’s our way of interacting with our community. We do not want to leave it to a robot or someone who doesn’t know what we’re about. Our Biodara Skincare products are hand crafted in-house in our studio and so is our social media. We love connecting with our followers.

Lorri Weisen Founder, Ahnesti Professional Hair Care

For the first three years after launching our brand, we did all of our social media in-house. Over time we realized that it was becoming more time consuming trying to keep up with each platforms’ algorithms and updates. We weren’t sure how to analyze the hashtags, statistics and reports in order to increase our conversion rates, follows, likes, etc., and it’s best to leave something so important in the hands of a professional. Three months ago, we hired a PR company – Venone PR – to handle our social media and, among other great stats, increased our Instagram followers by 65%. I am in a social media/business group on Facebook, and I was in need of a PR/social media person so I posted “help needed.” Kelly Richardson of Venone PR was one of 20 responses I received. There were maybe five really viable options out of the 20, and she was the most professional and offered what I needed: She is confidence, knowledgeable and connected.

If you have a question you’d like Beauty Independent to ask beauty entrepreneurs, please send it to editor@beautyindependent.com.