Premium Beauty News - You are one of the few people who have transformed their passion for social networking in a real occupation. Can you tell us what your activity consists in?
Laetitia Luthringer - As a consultant in the Social Media cluster of KRDS, I help brands communicate on Facebook. This includes both operational and strategic missions. It may consist in helping a brand build a page on Facebook, to propose quizzes, to recruit fans for her or to undertake on her behalf a real community management activity. Depending on its identity and its needs, we often undertake an audit to better target its presence on social networks, and advise the brand on all the construction work to achieve in terms of image through these new media.
In my case, I am more specifically in charge of luxury brands and of cosmetics. Partly because I was noticed as a beauty blogger and because this passion has led me to always want to get a better mastery of this market’s codes and techniques.
Most of my missions is devoted to communication on Facebook, KRDS being an agency specialized in F-marketing . But we can also, for larger budgets and when there’s an elaborate strategy of development on social networks, operate on other media.
Premium Beauty News - Precisely what are the goals of a community management on Facebook?
Laetitia Luthringer - I think the greatest achievement of a community manager is when he manages to develop around a brand a large community of fans, with enough motivation and enthusiasm to see the community generate by itself enough buzz and animation. At this stage, his role is simply to guide the community. Among the big successes of this type we can name Starbucks, or in the cosmetic sector, bareMinerals USA (Bare Escentuals Cosmetics). On the Facebook page of these brands, it is mostly the fans who express themselves, and with a high number of online posts (particularly for pictures). At this stage, the role of the community manager is almost only reduced, to controlling the legality of exchanges.
Premium Beauty News - However you are often far from such ideal situations!
Laetitia Luthringer - Yes. But not all brands have the same goal. For many of them, the display of their products or of their posts is a priority. In this case, the objective is much less to unite a community than to be seen and read by its targeted audience.
Premium Beauty News - No salvation outside of Facebook? What, about for example, Google +?
Laetitia Luthringer - Being present on several social networks takes time and requires resources. I think that at present, a presence on Google + is justified especially if one is targeting an audience of technophiles and even of techno-addicts. There are many people registered on Google + but the site’s traffic rate seems quite low. However some brand have been very successful on this medium, like Burberry.
In general, there are two questions to ask oneself before investing on a network. First question, is my target present on that medium? You must address each social network like you would addresses an agglomeration. And then question yourself on the profitability of your investment: where and by whom will you be seen? Will my advertising pay off? From this point of view, Facebook is an ultra-precise targeting tool. Second question, what will I say to my target? You must be sure of your identity and of your discourse.
In all cases, a campaign will always have more impact if it is not confined to the only chosen network, but if it is supported by an action on several other media. Especially in France, and more generally in Europe, consumers have less the Facebook reflex than in the United States. If some brands have a very large number of fans, it’s often because they did not hesitated to recruit them elsewhere than on Facebook, through POS actions for example.
Premium Beauty News - And the cosmetic brands in all this? Some say they are lagging behind?
Laetitia Luthringer - This is all very relative! There is nothing surprising if beauty brands took an interest in social media later than high-tech brands. It is a universe that could have seemed very distant to them. But the consequence, when they decided to invest these media, was to step in an increasingly expensive market...
Today, for an SME, the entry ticket is far from trivial if one wants to be efficient. Brands that got their tickets first have taken a lead and benefit from a greater loyalty.
Premium Beauty News - Is there not also a generational gap with leaders for whom Internet and social networks are still considered as an "area of inconsistency"?
Laetitia Luthringer - Social networking can be scary. This is not specific to cosmetics. To some leaders, entering Facebook is to run the risk of opening Pandora’s box. There are several answers to these concerns.
On the one hand, there is a legal restraint, which is permitted by the Facebook rules. On the other hand , brands can suggest rules of conduct (policies) on their page, and must not hesitate to put them forward.
But it is true that there are always people who have a negative opinion and for whom Facebook can give them the opportunity to speak publicly on the cheap. Listening to these people is always useful. One can of course delete their comments if they violate the rules of good conduct, one can also answer them constructively. They can even sometimes uncover problems not seen before.
This possibility which left for someone to express its negative opinions is what makes the strength of communication on social networks. Positive opinions have even more weight than negative opinions are possible. This may seem like a risky bet, because it is generally accepted that a consumer who has a negative opinion on a brand is more likely to express himself than if he had something positive to say. But inside a community of fans, this proportion is very different and positive opinions are expressed more easily and spontaneously. The role of the community manager is also to encourage and facilitate the expression of positive opinions.
