Beauty and social platforms have become intertwined in inextricable ways, with the beauty industry being the second-largest content category on Instagram. Some aspects of this development are advantageous, others problematic. For marketers and founders, online communication has been an incredible tool in accelerating growth and brand reach, albeit with rising costs. For consumers, it’s been a double-edged sword of fueling at times excessive purchasing and perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards. For content creators, it is a chance for immense professional success, but only in being able to navigate a highly competitive market.

Communications agency SEEN Group, which counts the likes of Garnier, Pai, Fenty Beauty, Almay, and Tatcha among its client roster, has created an online beauty network, described as a “beauty advocacy platform,” to enable a more accessible beauty influencer space. With Community x SEEN, more than 2,000 nano creators (those with over 1,000, but less than 10,000, followers) can partner with international beauty brands that would otherwise only collaborate with hero or macro creators, who boast audiences of 1 million+ or 100,000+ followers respectively. Beauty professionals and consumers alike from UK and US audiences can also find a home on the new platform, with hopes of crafting “a new level of authentic advocacy at scale for brands, shaping the social narrative to create a new form of beauty influence for obsessed audiences globally,” according to the company. 

Community x SEEN will be a space for product launch reviews, live digital events, and bespoke brand collaborations. SEEN is also offering bespoke social upskilling sessions and product rewards alongside possible paid content collaborations for the creators using its platform, giving back to the community that is enabling it to grow. While the premise for the platform began in 2020, it is finally witnessing its global debut this month. “Influencer marketing has grown to become such a core part of our business. We identified a real opportunity to use our expertise to discover, nurture, and connect socially engaged new beauty creators with the best in global brands to unlock richer social beauty experiences,” states Jane Walsh, SEEN Group CEO.

In an era of extensive #sponsored posts and controversial fallouts, the nano influencer presents something of an “everyday person’s beauty guru,” returning the genre to its roots of a relatable someone, rather than an LA-based, mansion-living millionaire celebrity. For brands and collaborators alike, this level-headed, authenticity-driven approach can only be beneficial. “A volume of genuine peer-to-peer brand recommendations can work in parallel with higher, equity-building and awareness-driving influence to grow the beauty conversation, while simultaneously providing consumers with relatable knowledge via social to make more informed purchasing decisions through the voice of everyday, likeminded creators and beauty professionals,” Walsh comments. “Ultimately, it’s about making the world of social beauty a more authentic, knowledgeable, and inclusive space for all.”