Community of the Week: Sephora

Makeup lovers, fans, artists, and consumers have a phenomenal resource at their fingertips: Sephora’s Beauty Insider Community. In this space, you can ask ANY beauty question you’ve ever had, and you’ll likely receive a quick response from another community user or a few of them.

I once turned to this community because my favorite face oil had been discontinued. I posted a question asking for a recommendation for a similar product that could replace it. I saw that someone replied to the post with a recommendation, and that person’s profile indicated she was a makeup artist. Knowing that info helped me to trust her suggestion, and I immediately purchased the product. Ahhh the power of community!

What I love most:

1. Sephora has done their research, and they know the categories their members want to converse in. That’s why users can easily navigate to Groups and become immersed in deep conversation on that Group’s subject. It also allows members who have a specific beauty interest or expertise to find the place within the community that might be most worthwhile for spending their time.

2. The recently-launched Ambassador program! Sephora rewards a select group of active users with the opportunity to become an Ambassador. (Congrats to the inaugural class!) They believe in showing their gratitude to these dedicated members while also providing them with exclusive perks.

3. Video tutorials can be found on the community’s home page. These are well-placed on the page layout to capture the attention of new members and provide them with some basic information for getting started.

4. The many forms of engagement are STRONG with the Beauty Insiders. One example of this is their current sweepstakes for National Lipstick Day, which is Thursday, July 29.

Speaking of lipstick, thank you to Sephora’s community team for gifting me my all-time favorite lipstick color, which I proudly wore on a recent trip to Hawaii. 👄

My wish list:

1. When looking at the page for a particular product on their web site (not the community part of the site), I’d love to see a section like “What’s the Community saying about this product?” that then links to all community posts that have tagged the product. For example, here’s the product page for a popular lipstick. I know this product has been talked about and tagged on the community (in this thread), but the product page on the web site isn’t currently mentioning or linking to that.

2. The community spotlighted and mentioned more in the stores. I imagine this is probably a pretty hard thing to execute and track referrals on, but it still amazes me how many people don’t know about this space. Maybe adding the community URL to signage and bags would help?

*Full disclosure: I worked with Sephora’s community team for a few years, however, they had no knowledge or awareness that I would be highlighting them this week. Surprise!*

What do YOU think of Sephora’s Beauty Insider Community? If you’re reading this in your inbox, just hit reply to send me your response privately. If you’d like to share publicly, scroll to the comments section below (or, again, if you’re reading this in your inbox, click on the title at the top of the email. Then, scroll down to the comments section.)

This is part of a weekly series where I’ll select a community I’m inspired by and write about it. Sometimes they’ll be ones that I’m a member of. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes they’ll be clients. Sometimes they won’t. Each post will share what I enjoy the most about that community, and if you’re familiar with it, I hope you’ll share what you like about it, too. 

Do you have a nominee for Community of the Week? If so, send me a brief email with the name, URL, and a few sentences as to why I should highlight it and check it out.