Rihanna's Fenty Beauty, Amazon lead social media mentions for holiday gift shopping, study says

Brief:

Fenty Beauty, the cosmetics brand started by singer Rihanna, was the top brand on Twitter with 47,600 engagements in the past 30 days as social media users looked for holiday gift ideas, according to data from social media analytics firm Talkwalker shared with Mobile Marketer. The Fenty Beauty Holiday Gift Guide also drew attention on YouTube with more than 200,000 views and 16,000 interactions.
Amazon had 40,100 mentions on Twitter, including more than 39,000 mentions in relation to holiday and Christmas gifts. The e-commerce giant's gift cards are popular gifts in holiday giveaways, while many YouTubers posted tutorial videos to help viewers find gifts on Amazon, Talkwalker said.
Twitter users mentioned gifts in more than 2.2 million tweets, and gift cards received 122,000 mentions during the month-long period. Starbucks, Disney, Walmart and Intel rounded out the list of top-mentioned brands in tweets about gifts, according to Talkwalker.

Insight:

Rihanna has demonstrated the power of her personal brand in marketing cosmetics on social media. Her Fenty Beauty Gift Guide led Twitter in mentions during the holiday shopping season, and got a boost on YouTube with an appearance by reality star Tiffany "New York" Pollard, helping the video keep racking up views among the brand's 425,000-plus subscribers.

Rihanna is accomplished on social media, filling her @badgalriri account on Instagram with a mix of fashion and beauty photography, red carpet looks and personal posts. Her Fenty Beauty channel on YouTube includes a variety of videos to demonstrate products, including her recent "Tutorial Tuesdays" series that has racked up millions of views. Even as millennials report being turned off by celebrity endorsements, ones that score high marks for celebrity recognition, authenticity, trustworthiness and brand match — like Rihanna and Fenty Beauty — are still effective.

Videos of gift recommendations are growing more popular on YouTube, which has made celebrities out of people like 7-year-old Ryan, whose Ryan Toysreview channel has 17.3 million subscribers. His popular unboxing videos made him the highest-paid YouTube star, earning $22 million in a 12-month period, according to estimates by Forbes magazine. Along with Rihanna's Fenty Gift Guide, other popular gift guides included those by YouTube influencers Tati Westbrook, LexiVee and Cherry Wallis. The success of those gift guides is a reminder that marketers should not forget YouTube when crafting influencer campaigns.

In addition to gift guides, the popularity of gift cards on social media indicate that marketers can gain attention on platforms like Twitter and YouTube by partnering with influencers on promotions that include gift-card giveaways. Amazon and Starbucks gift cards were frequently mentioned in Twitter posts and YouTube videos. The promotions have the power to go viral as social media users share them with friends and followers, and they gain more momentum by showing up as top trends on platforms like Twitter and YouTube.