Inside the World of YouTube Gurus

Kaitlyn Fajilan

 

The title of the video is "Natural Looking Makeup Tutorial.” Its upload date is listed as May 20, 2007. In it, a college-age girl with a curtain of dark hair and porcelain skin peers into the camera and turns her face to the side, running a finger along her cheekbone.

"Did you know 9 out of 10 people have dark circles?" she asks, then begins carefully dabbing concealer onto the area beneath her eyes. As light piano music plays in the background, the video’s slightly fuzzy quality lends it the feel of a dormitory Skype session.

Who would have known that in just seven years, this soft-spoken young woman filming a tutorial in her bedroom will have amassed over 6 million subscribers, launched her own makeup and jewelry lines, and turned millionaire through a series of worldwide beauty product endorsements and campaigns, all before the age of 27?

The young woman’s name is Michelle Phan, and she currently represents a growing body of up-and-coming YouTube "gurus" who are revolutionizing beauty consumerism by actively engaging with social media users in ways that major beauty brands have so far proved unable to emulate.

With over 45,000 non-brand affiliated YouTube channels specializing in cosmetic or sartorial advice, Fashion and Beauty is fast becoming a formidable game player within the digital media platform. In fact, according to the recent findings of Pixability, a big data software company that performs research to help major brands cater their marketing toward specific YouTube audiences, a whopping 14.9 billion YouTube video views are beauty-related. Interestingly enough, 97 percent of the beauty videos are non-brand affiliated, with YouTube's top 25 beauty vloggers receiving 2,600 percent more comments on average than beauty brand channels, and 115 times more subscribers.

Pixability lists a number of reasons for the discrepancy between brand and non-brand affiliated beauty channels. Among them, they cite the fact that beauty brand channels don't appear to be reaching large enough audiences, with 70 percent of their videos receiving less than 10,000 views. Though brand channels only produce 6 percent less tutorials than non-affiliated bloggers, the difference negatively impacts viewership, considering tutorials comprise nearly 40 percent of all YouTube beauty-related videos. Also, beauty brand channels are typically slack in publishing new content, with new videos coming out on average only once every six weeks.

Beauty vloggers, on the other hand, are seemingly dynamic entities that not only seek to engage and relate with their audiences, but do so on a consistent basis. Successful vloggers typically publish new content twice a week, with top beauty and fashion "gurus" publishing new content seven times more frequently than brand channels, and creating 10 times more videos overall.

Vloggers also produce longer content--their videos average five-plus minutes in length, compared to brand videos, which average less than three minutes. The correlation between extended video length and higher rates of viewership may have to do with the fact that YouTube beauty consumers prefer longer video tutorials that allow them to follow along in real time, as opposed to brief, commercial-esque videos that don't provide as much detail and opportunity for information absorption.

 

 

Furthermore, vloggers largely increase their chances of audience likeability and viewership loyalty by virtue of repeated exposure. Consumers begin to identify with a face that they see on a more consistent basis, and many viewers will gravitate toward a guru whose age, lifestyle, and aesthetic preferences resemble those of their own. The fact that female gurus often film unscripted tutorials and "hauls" (videos in which a vlogger showcases several recent product purchases) from their own bedrooms further enhances the guru's image of the "older sister" or "best friend" figure one would consult for makeup and fashion issues. A popular guru will often devote entire videos to divulging details about her life or recent activities in an effort to encourage audience relatability, a tactic that might otherwise prove inappropriate for beauty brand channels; many gurus document their activities by providing footage of events like vacations, fashion shows, or simple outings as a means of "bringing fans along,” which further contributes to the glamorization of the guru’s inner life.

In terms of relatability, beauty vloggers also possess the advantage of catering to a specific community. Vloggers with skin conditions like vitiligo or eczema help consumers who suffer from the same condition by uploading tutorials on cover-up techniques and specialized product reviews. Popular Asian vloggers like Bubzbeauty and From Head to Toe often provide tips for applying makeup to Asian skin tones and features, while Black beauty gurus like Long Hair Don't Care and Chescalocs regularly provide techniques for styling and caring for natural hair. Such options may appear particularly appealing to ethnic consumers in light of the American media and makeup industry bias toward white female aesthetics (airbrushing ethnic celebrities to look more white?) In fact, a vlogger's race alone may be enough to garner a significant following, especially if there aren't many competitors in her ethnic category. Hispanic gurus, for example, are much less common on YouTube compared to Black and Asian beauty vloggers, but Latina guru Dulce Tejeda (known as Dulcecandy87)  has over 1 million subscribers and is among YouTube's top 25 beauty gurus.

Given these gurus' staggering appeal to online beauty consumers, beauty brands are naturally taking the step to utilize these hip, ambitious, and tech-savvy content creators to help advertise their products. It is becoming more and more common for popular makeup and fashion YouTube gurus to take on beauty brand sponsorships, in which companies pay them to review or feature their products in their videos. Vloggers may also engage in affiliate programs, in which they post links to certain makeup, jewelry, or clothing companies in the description box of their video, or even on their various blogs, and in turn receive commission from viewer clicks, member sign-ups, or purchases. Gurus with significant followings can also expect more monetization through Adsense, the Google-run program that embeds advertisements into YouTube videos and offers the vlogger roughly $2-5 for every 1,000 views, depending on click-through rate. If a guru is averaging two videos a week, and each video consistently receives hundreds of thousands of views with a high click-through rate, the payments begin to add up.

 

 

Michelle Phan, who will turn 27 in April, is arguably YouTube's most successful beauty guru. She began uploading makeup tutorials on YouTube in 2007 (prior to that she had uploaded makeup tutorials on Xanga under the name Ricebunny). Her voiceover narratives, special effects, and creative looks quickly amassed a following, and in 2009 Buzzfeed began sharing some of her videos, exponentially increasing her viewership and propelling her to viral status. In the following years she not only became Lancôme's official video makeup artist and co-founded Ipsy, an online beauty subscription service that offers personalized products and tutorials to its members, but released her own jewelry line, Ever Eden. In 2012, she launched FAWN, a YouTube multi-channel women's lifestyle network, and in 2013, she launched her own makeup line, Em by Michelle Phan, in conjunction with the L'Oreal Group. Phan's current net worth is estimated to be around $3 million.

In an interview with Fashionista earlier this year, Phan revealed that she used to only make 50 cents a day through YouTube's Partner Program.  She told the online magazine, "I wasn't trying to become rich off of YouTube. But the more videos you create, the bigger the library and the more you can start seeing the numbers grow.” Phan also stresses that, ultimately, subject matter is the determining factor of a video's success. “I don’t want people to think they need a perfect amazing-lighting video,” she says. "If it’s authentic and has a great message, people will watch.”

Though Phan appears to be at the forefront of the beauty guru movement, a number of makeup mavens are hot on her heels. Sisters Elle and Blair Fowler (whose YouTube usernames are AllThatGlitters21 and juicystar07, respectively) are beauty vloggers who have become entrepreneurs in their right, having released a novel, Beneath the Glitter, loosely based on their own lives, as well as their own makeup line, Skylark. They are currently working on a shoe and handbag line to release in conjunction with JustFab, an online fashion retailer. Hollywood cosmetic artist and YouTube beauty guru Kandee Johnson has been featured in women's magazines like Elle, Glamour, Nylon, and Cosmopolitan, as well as the shows Good Morning America and The Style Network's How Do I Look?, in which she appeared as a judge. She's also partnered up with Simon Cowell as a panel member of his YouTube channel, You Generation, a global talent-scouting project.

Still, Phan's channel currently holds the record for most video views, boasting nearly 900 million total views--compare that with Dior, the most highly watched beauty brand channel on YouTube, which has so far only amassed about 99.8 million total views. Last year, Jim Lecinski, Vice President of Sales at Google, said in a prepared statement, "YouTube content creators like Michelle Phan have completely transformed the way people learn about and shop for makeup today. A few years ago, people primarily shopped by going to the beauty counter at a mall. Now, they go first to YouTube and search for tutorials and reviews." Indeed, Google research shows that 50 percent of all beauty shoppers are turning to YouTube videos before making purchases.

As YouTube beauty vlogger viewer and subscription rates continue to increase, the beauty industry will probably have to take greater strides in keeping up with beauty consumer dynamics, utilizing these viral “girls next door” to market their products on a larger scale.

 

 

Author Bio:

Kaitlin Fajilan is a contributing writer at Highbrow Magazine.

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