NaturallyCurly.com, Temptalia and Basenotes have been named as the three most influential beauty blogs. This is according to Konector’s latest report that ranks the top 50 beauty blogs and bloggers. The report is designed for beauty companies who are using, or thinking of using, blogs and social networks to promote their brands.
“Using blogs for brand promotion is extremely powerful,” says Konector’s Director of Analytics, Brett Norval. “The total combined audience for the top 50 beauty blogs is over 2.8 million visitors a month. That is a huge number, and what’s more, these are decided views. The majority of people accessing these sites have made an active decision to view the page. Not curiosity, not advertising, just genuine interest in the content. Beauty companies can get their brands in front of those targeted consumers from day one. They can then monitor the conversations on a regular basis and gather all the feedback.”
Although the number of visitors is important, it is not the only requirement to make it in to the Konector Top 50 list. “When ranking the blogs we focus on three main criteria — reach, frequency and interaction,” says Norval. “We therefore use our proprietary Online Impact Factor to measure how many people visit a blog, how often they visit that blog and how active they are once they get there. It is very similar to what an advertiser would use to measure the success of a campaign.”
So what separates the top beauty blogs from the others?
“What is most noticeable is that many of the leading blogs focus on a particular topic or target market,” says Konector Director, Kingsley Maunder. “Basenotes, for example, is the online guide to fragrances, Temptalia and Specktra.net for MAC Cosmetics, NaturallyCurly.com for people who battle with frizzy hair. Afrobella, ranked at number seven, has set itself up as the beauty site for African Americans and Viva Woman targets an Asian audience.”
“The top blogs have also mastered the search engine optimization techniques,” continues Norval. “If you type in ‘Beauty Blog’ or ‘Makeup Blog’ into Google you will find Makeup and Beauty Blog at the top of the rankings.
Temptalia also tops the rankings if you search for ‘eye makeup’, ‘how to apply makeup’ or ‘makeup tips’. In addition to this Temptalia also has great content, and that converts visitors into regular readers. Regular readers are key as they denote people that are truly interested and interactive. They have crossed the barrier of ignored content and are actively engaging content.”
Another factor that differentiates the leading blogs from the rest is that the bloggers use all possible means to promote their sites, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. “Beauty is so visual that online videos are perfect,” says Maunder. “A few blogs have shot into the top 50 because the bloggers have mastered YouTube. Pursebuzz.com and xSparkage are two great examples of this, with over 125 thousand and 110 thousand respective YouTube subscribers.”
There are some blogs that one would think should be in the top 50, BellaSugar, The Jet Set Girls and eBeautyDaily for example. Norval explains, “For this particular report we did not include corporate blogs or networks in the Top 50. It is for this reason that sites like TotalBeauty.com, The Beauty Blog Network and the Sugar Network (BellaSugar”> are not included. Another criterion to make the list is that the main focus of the blog has to be beauty, and that is why we did not include successful blogs like Shecky’s, Splendicity (eBeautyDaily”> and The Jet Set Girls. We are accumulating data on these other blogs and fully expect to see them ranked in other industry reports.
So do Konector have any predictions for next year’s top 50 blogs? “We will soon be announcing the list of top 50 beauty bloggers, where we rank the impact that the individual bloggers have on the beauty industry,” says Maunder. “This will give you a better prediction of which blogs will do well next year, but my advice to bloggers is to focus your content and use all social media platforms to get out there in front of your readers. Beauty bloggers who use YouTube will definitely see the benefits, and if they can combine that with other social media networks, then all the better.”