There’s nary a beauty lover who hasn’t heard of Emily Weiss. The stylish American is the creative innovator who launched Into The Gloss and more recently, the Glossier skincare line.
A true social media star, Weiss was recently interviewed at the TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2015 conference, where she revealed just how major an influence the digital world has played on her empire’s growth.
Instagram was integral. She harnessed its popularity and audience - of which 90 per cent are under 35 and nearly two-thirds are female - to launch her Glossier brand. As for the Into The Gloss Instagram account, it has 226,000 followers.
Weiss says, “I’m on Instagram more than any other social platform.” It’s perhaps through her dedication to the social media platform that Weiss formed her business plan, which first and foremost focuses on the consumer - rather than the brand.
She explains her consumers’ influence on the direction of the company: “We have formed a global following of women who never cease to inspire us, who always push the company forward. It’s always a two-way conversation that we have. I think it’s the smartest beauty companies and beauty brands that recognise that brands today aren’t built in a bubble. Consumers have a lot to say and I think it’s so important to listen to them.”
Weiss adds the opportunity for interaction afforded via the website and various media platforms is important. She says: “[via the website] we wanted to make beauty personal and enlighten and activate our cohort of beauty consumers who otherwise may have been passive… it’s connected so many women around the world.”
She says it has helped her to gain financial support, saying: “Investors recognised that the Into The Gloss team had developed an enormous amount of trust with consumers around the world”.
Indeed, it is what has propelled the company to earn US$10.4 million to launch the Glossier sector (after aiming for just US$2 million). It also helped to attract Forerunner Ventures’ Kirsten Green as the brand’s lead investor.
Image crop: Instagram.com/emilywweiss
Image carousel: Into The Gloss
