Media Companies Often Beat Influencers for Beauty Learning Content Engagement

As people spend more and more time on social media, how the platforms are used is changing. No longer is it just about connecting with friends and family or catching up on news, memes and trends — social is increasingly being used as a search function, especially when it comes to learning content (DIY guides, how-tos, etc), as a new study from Tubular Labs reveals. 

For its Social Is the New Search report, Tubular examined a variety of categories, including beauty, to see how learning content performs compared to overall platform-wide content. And while it’s easy to assume that influencers dominate for views and engagements with beauty content on social, the data suggests that’s not quite the case: Tubular’s analysis of learning content on social media in 2024 found that by some aspects, media companies were actually winning. 

• On Instagram, influencers created 21.2K learning beauty videos, compared to 1,481 from brands and just 377 from media companies — but media companies averaged 7.7% more engagements per video than influencers. 
• Although influencers made 187X more TikTok videos than media companies during the year, media companies actually earned 11% more views per video across beauty learning content. 
• One growth opportunity area is around DIY: Tubular’s analysis of YouTube videos within the beauty learning content category found that the “do it yourself” shows up in the top five most-engaging, and top six most-watched topics — but is absent from the top uploads. Tubular notes that this indicates creators aren’t keeping up with audiences’ desire for this type of content.