How Glossier Built A Community Led Digital Strategy

Key Takeaways

Glossier, a skincare and beauty brand, has created a cult-like following through their community-first marketing approach which consists of the following;

Feedback Loop: Glossier has created an open dialogue between the brand and consumers through four main avenues:

1. Into The Gloss Blog (ITG) — The brand engages the ITG community to crowdsource product ideas by publishing posts asking readers what their dream fash wash is. The Glossier team then gathered feedback and one year later, they launched the Milky Jelly Cleanser incorporating feedback from the ITG community. Allowing consumers to be a part of the product creation process allows them to feel closer to the brand and product. 
2. Facebook Group —  Into The Gloss has its own FB group with 21K members who often ask questions about their beauty or skincare routine. Admins of the group regularly create master threads where they pick a topic and ask members to share their favourite tips
3. Slack — Glossier invited 100 of their top customers and rep leaders to be a part of the slack group, where on average 1,100 messages are exchanged on a weekly basis. 
4. Reddit — The Glossier subreddit currently has 28K subscribers and has seen a +81% growth YoY in April 2021 compared to April 2020.
   

The Rep Program: Glossier recognizes the leaders of the Glossier community by inviting them to be a part of the rep program where they get perks such as an affiliate link to earn commission, exclusive access to new products and Glossier merchandise. Each rep leader is given their own unique landing page where consumers who shop through a Glossier rep page receive a 10% discount on Glossier products. 

User-Generated Content: UGC fuels Glossier’s content strategy across their digital channels from social to email. On Instagram, UGC makes up 33% of Glossier’s Instagram in-feed posts and almost half (42%) of Glossier’s TikTok posts. Glossier’s highly responsive social team keeps tabs on tagged posts which are reposted and turned into social content. 

Glossier, a skincare and beauty brand, has created a cult-like following through their community-first marketing approach.

Glossier’s community led digital strategy consists of the following:

1. Feedback Loop

Glossier has created an open dialogue between the brand and consumers through their blog, Facebook group, Slack channel and subreddit.

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Into The Gloss was founded in 2010 by Glossier founder Emily Weiss and has since developed a loyal following known as the ITG community. On average, the blog generates 874K monthly visits. 

Glossier uses their blog, Into The Gloss (ITG), to crowdsource product ideas and to create an open dialogue between the ITG community and the product team. 

1. Engage the Community. Glossier published a blog post asking their readers: “What’s Your Dream Face Wash?” They asked the ITG community to not hold back and share their love stories and anecdotes.
   
2. Gather Feedback. The post generated 377 comments in total. Community members expressed their pain points as well as the specific product features that they would love to see in a cleanser.
   
3. Launch. One year later, the Milky Jelly cleanser was launched, incorporating the feedback of the ITG community.

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Glossier created a Facebook group for the Into The Gloss community where members can share their tips, favorite products, and “discuss what beauty means to you today.” The group currently has 21K members.

Glossier is able to compile consumer feedback in two ways: Master Threads & “Ask a Question” posts:

• Master Threads. Admin members regularly create master threads where they pick a topic (i.e: self tanners) and ask members to share their favorite products and tips. Each master thread contains links to various blog posts from “Into The Gloss”
• "Ask a Question". Members of the ITG community often ask questions about various pain points in their beauty routine or general beauty and skincare advice.

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Glossier invited ~100 of their top customers to be a part of a slack group, where on average, 1,100 messages are exchanged weekly. 

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The Glossier subreddit currently has 28K members and saw a +81% growth in YoY in April 2021. 

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Popular posts on the Glossier subreddit fall under the following categories:

2. The Rep Program

‍Glossier recognizes the leaders of the Glossier community by inviting them to become a part of “The Rep Program” where each rep receives unique perks such as a unique affiliate code, exclusive access to new products and discounts.

Glossier recognizes the leaders of the Glossier community by inviting them to be a part of the rep program. Each rep gets a unique affiliate link and page on the Glossier website where they receive a commission on all sales.

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Top performing leaders in the rep program are invited to “rep trips”. Previously,  Glossier flew a group of rep members out to NYC for a Glossier sponsored getaway. 

The hashtag #glossiergetaway was used amongst the group of ladies who got to go on a Glossier trip to NYC. As part of the campaign, each rep hosted a Glossier giveaway for their followers.

3. User-Generated Content

UGC fuels Glossier’s content strategy across their digital channels from social to email. The Glossier social team is highly engaged and responsive to consumers’ comments and tweets mentioning the brand.

Glossier uses Instagram Stories as a vehicle to create a two way dialogue between the consumers and the marketing team through the use of the “Question” sticker.

Top 4 Instagram Story Tactics Glossier Uses to Engage the Community:

1. Top 5 Series. Glossier shares screenshots of the top 5 posts that they were tagged in during the week.
   
2. Q&A series. Glossier invites industry professionals (i.e: dermatologists) to answer the community’s skincare questions
   
3. Gift Ideas. Glossier uses the “question” sticker on IG stories to engage with their followers.
   
4. Sharing Reviews. Glossier shares stellar product reviews to their IG story, encouraging others to post reviews on the site.

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User-generated content (UGC) makes up 33%* of Glossier’s Instagram in-feed posts.

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On TikTok, user-generated content makes up almost half (42%) of Glossier’s total posts on the platform.

Glossier features UGC content in their newsletter, where they encourage their subscribers to publish posts under various featured hashtags such as #boybrow. 

Glossier’s highly responsive social team keeps tabs on mentioned posts and takes time to respond to comments on their social platform to keep the community engaged.