The sphere of influence in Africa’s $11 billion beauty industry is shifting to digital content creators. Results of a survey by software company Opera and World Reader revealed that women in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa spend more than 8x a day browsing the internet and spend most of that time on lifestyle content.
Beauty influencers like Dimma Umeh (Nigeria), Cynthia Gwebu (South Africa), Whitney Madueke (New York), Sheila Ndadi (Kenya), Mihlali (South Africa), and Akai Kotei (Ghana) are part of the community of African women taking control of the conversation around their beauty needs.
With over 7 million views, Kangai Mwiti, one of Africa’s most influential beauty content creators, holds a total advertising value of over N 10 million.
For many young African women, being a beauty influencer can be a full-time job between posting daily beauty content to racking up thousands of likes to learning how to use new technology tools like DSLR camera and photo editing apps.
So how do you grow your beauty influence? Consistency is Key!
In order to grow your base on any platform, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook SnapChat, we recommend that up and coming beauty influencers post at least three times a day.
It is also important for beauty influencers to stay on top of trends. Bloggers who post based on what’s trending tend to go viral. For example, the doughnut glaze highlight is a trend beauty influencers can capitalize on.
You can also look at what’s trending by looking at hashtags, what you see major makeup artists doing, and what major beauty blogs are writing about.
For many influencers, you may reach a point where you think nothing is happening. If this is a passion, you have to keep on going even when it’s slow. Just keep doing it.
As Co-Founder of Beauty Revolution, we get many requests from young African women on how to grow their influence. We also hear from brands who want to work with influencers in order to meet their marketing goals. Come back next week for part II of the “Becoming InstaFamous Series,” where we will highlight the top technology tools and apps to create quality digital beauty content.
