When Mashable speaks, I listen. And this month, they commended beauty brands for being the most digitally savvy of their luxury slash personal care counterparts.

So since it’s now expected that they perform on this front (no pressure, obvs), I decided to look at the social media strategies of two of our largest beauty co’s to see how they address it, both in and outside of Australia.

#1 MAC Cosmetics

Globally
Never one to shy away from…well, anything topical really (they were under fire last year for a socially insensitive collaboration with Rodarte) MAC are trojans of the digital space. Their Facebook page has over two-million fans and their Twitter strategy is cleverly executed through their senior make-up artists. As for their YouTube channel, let’s just call it a timewasting mecca as I just spent my whole morning there. They are also blogger-friendly having recently opened their labs to a few favoured beauty bloggers, resulting in a range called Blogger Obsessions, which is currently being sold through their website. 

Locally
These guys rest comfortably on their global laurels, which, with the help of some Australian tweeters (my own personal favourite is @MAC_Nicole_T). It seems to do the job, for now.

Overall
I commend the way MAC have effectively ‘recycled’ their resources, from their staff to their science labs and then to their ambassadors (Gaga’s 12-million followers can’t hurt a brand). Also love that they are confident enough to put their senior artists on the frontline of Twitter. At this stage, I feel their strategy includes us Aussie’s enough, but ultimately more can be more in this space. I’d love to see a collective local Tumblr or even someone in the MAC PR department here in Australia tweeting from HQ.

#2 Maybelline New York

Globally
These guys have your token platforms covered including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but Twitter is undeniably what they do best. It’s exciting to see a big corporation (owned by L’Oreal) empowering their digital department to embrace the free-flowing nature of Twitter. Another clever addition online is their NYC365 project, in which they select a street shot of an ‘it-girl’ and then provide expert instructions on how-to get her look.

Locally
Sadly, there’s a lot of white space from these guys locally and unlike MAC, the MNY global strategy doesn’t really make us islanders feel like we’re part of the action. Looking forward to seeing how they address this moving forward (hopefully sooner rather than later!)

Overall
Room for improvement here. With so many brilliant resources at their disposal, from affiliations to photography, locally they could be going off like a rocket about now so here’s hoping they catch on.

This writer is being transparent by letting you know she also gets paid to manage the social media accounts of beauty brands (but neither of the ones mentioned here).