John Marshall Roberts, communications strategist and CEO of Worldview Learning, will explore the gamut of social media outlets available to beauty companies, highlighting their applications in marketing, sales, public relations and customer service.

John Marshall Roberts

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media channels have particular significance to natural and organic personal care companies since these companies sometimes struggle to communicate their brand / product values to consumers. Research by Organic Monitor finds that consumers cannot always distinguish pure natural and organic products from competing ones. Indeed, many often confuse conventional beauty products with legitimate natural / organic ones because of the lack of regulations for product labelling & marketing.

Thus, word-of-mouth is the most important communication channel for natural & organic brands. According to Organic Monitor, most buyers get product information from friends & family. Furthermore, most users of natural & organic beauty products are well-educated and IT savvy, making them ideally placed for social media marketing campaigns.

“Social media can dramatically increase return on investment for marketing dollars if done correctly, as they allow brands to generate a global following of loyal customers with relatively low investment,” John Marshall Roberts states. He highlights Burt’s Bees and Sephora as two companies that are using social media effectively, however Roberts states the use of social media in the natural & organic beauty industry remains largely underexploited, and that there is tremendous room for growth.

On the occasion of the upcoming Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, which will be held at Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York on March 24-26th, Roberts will give case studies of companies who have successfully integrated social media channels into their marketing strategy.