BEAUTY HAULS & REVIEWS CONTEXTUAL REPORT

BCM302

Knowing that this is the final digital artefact and contextual report is bittersweet. Looking back at all the digital artefacts I’ve begun, developed or neglected indeed shows my growth as a person finding my way and footing in the digital world which has been exciting, fun and at times challenging to keep up with. For my final digital artefact, I decided it was best to continue a previous digital artefact that I enjoyed and found had utility for myself and also for others who consumed my content. My digital artefact I had named “Beauty Hauls and Reviews” and focused to publish my content through TikTok.

Background

I began this digital artefact journey wanting to make an impact in the beauty and makeup industry. This is ultimately the industry that I have wanted to focus on and delve into. Its been my passion and hobby since the age of 13. As I’ve been involved in some form or another in the beauty industry, I felt I had enough knowledge and expertise from watching others, for creating content surrounding the beauty and makeup industry and found it was important for my future. Before studying for my bachelor of communications and media, I had never had that push of encouragement to begin doing something in this industry and for that, I’ll forever be grateful to have had that push and ability to ideate, test and reiterate as well as scrapping and beginning all over again when failure was experienced.

I wouldn’t have labelled myself as a content creator when I began the DA, but seeing how far I’ve come since taking the DA seriously, I can see in my future labelling myself in this way especially or more specifically as a TikTok content creator. I’ve come to love the process and the responses that my followers have had with me and the content I’ve published. It’s a truly exciting and surreal experience to see and hear from followers and be able to interact with people on a topic I love.

Pitch Blog Post & Video

Proposed Utility

For my final digital artefact, I began with the intention to grow my online presence in the beauty and makeup space on TikTok. I never intended this DA to become a “beauty influencer” type of digital artefact and nor did I ever expect to see the growth that I have seen in the past 3 months. I simply decided that to pursue my passion, I needed to make this a passion project rather than focusing on the fact that this was an assessment, I framed this digital artefact as a passion project and hobby. This mindset and framing of my digital artefact gave me the extra passion and drive to work on the digital artefact without feeling as though it was a hassle or burden.

Apart from the desire to grow my presence on the platform to help others, I wanted to set myself as a beauty content creator from Australia. The majority of content creators in this space are from other countries, with the vast majority being from the United States of America. It is difficult to be a part of this beauty tiktok realm as Australians unfortunately often miss out on new product launches and brands that are exclusive to stores Australians cannot access. I wanted to create content that focused on Australian brands or products that anyone could easily access and purchase for themselves if they wished.

Methodology

The intended methodology with the DA was to continue carrying on my previous DA by posting consistently once a day. I never mentioned this previously as I hadn’t realised this prior, but I posted these daily videos at around 9 pm-9:30 pm which I believe had a successful impact on the growth I experienced throughout this process. Although I intended to post at least one video daily, this was not always something I could achieve but in saying this, I ensured that if I had some time away from posting when I did make my return, I worked harder and created content that was trending or that had an important utility to my audience that ultimately saw growth.

I generally spent my weekends batch creating content to then edit daily as needed to post to my account. Occasionally I posted 1-2 videos a day. Knowing not all people enjoy waiting for a part 2, I often decided the best way to reach my audience and have them return for part 2, would be to post the content videos back to back. This certainly saw part 1 videos have far better results but it did also pull people back to my page and potentially have them select to watch the other videos.

Alongside my video posting and the intended schedule I had created for myself, I decided to document my progress through monthly reports. Consider the end of this report as my October update. I stuck true to this schedule although there were times I should have posted the updates sooner, I still persevered and wrote up a blog post update that included progress reports and exciting things I discovered and found to happen in that particular month. To see those progress update blog posts, please follow the links below.

August Update

September Update:

Intended Audience / Starter Pack

My intended audience is easy to describe yet hard to pinpoint due to TikTok’s algorithm. It’s difficult to determine if the audience consuming my content fits my exact intended audience but with the interaction and growth I’ve experienced, I feel I can safely assume my content has reached my desired audience. These people are part of my below starter pack.

I imagine my audience to look, feel and be a part of the beauty side of tiktok in one or multiple ways pictured in my audience starter pack. I feel I fit this starter pack as I have also been heavily influenced by the recommendations given by other TikTokers in the beauty realm.

Collaboration Element

This new feature to collaborate with another person developing their digital artefact was interesting, and if you used your opportunity wisely, it was an excellent way to get feedback and advice from a new perspective. This insight has the potential to assist you to create further improvements in the development of the DA. I decided that the best use and collaboration for my DA would be to contact Kira Sweet.

I decided to reach out to Kira back in week 5. My DA had progressed from the beginning statistics I had recorded earlier that month but was not seeing any steady or consistent new followers, comments or views. Kira was part of the creative services team providing fellow DA peers advice on their TikTok pages as she has grown her own and managed other TikTok accounts quite well and had the knowledge and experience I was lacking in this area. Although reaching out made me nervous, the whole process was easy and quite delightful! She had put out a post on Twitter looking for any DAs she could lend her services to, so I replied and we got to talking. We ended up organising a date when we could meet on zoom. She analyzed the content I had already published and provided me with a document full of different ways I could improve my content and begin seeing growth on TikTok and in the niche I specifically have chosen to be a part of.

This zoom meeting was extremely insightful and I found it to have helped me immensely. In the meeting, we discussed points of improvement and ways I could get my content and my message in this niche more defined. Everything we discussed in the zoom meeting was sent to me afterwards which helped me go back and take a look at the document which I did multiple times throughout my DA’s progress as a way to go back and find inspiration when I felt I was lacking ideas.

The ideas that were brought forward in the meeting with Kira and me were in the document provided to me and after analysing my content now, it is evident her advice helped a lot. I began to recognise the names of people who were regularly interacting and consuming my content. For me, this meant that I was beginning to see the signs of growth and improvement in my content and my niche and ultimately suggesting that I was growing in this niche. I was beginning to see my presence make an impact. Due to this, I would say that without the collaborative element, my DA may not have done as well as I have seen it achieve. I thoroughly enjoyed the collaboration that was included in this digital artefact assessment task.

Feedback

The feedback I received mainly came from my collaborative element and what Kira and I discussed when analysing the content I had already produced and published to improve upon for my future content. If I was to give feedback to myself looking back at how I’ve managed my DA, I can certainly see areas I could have improved on. I would say that the weeks that I consistently posted the content that was trending and where I was actively and consistently posting were my best. My downfall areas where I hadn’t noticed as much interaction came from the moments I had taken a break. These breaks certainly had an impact where occasionally I would notice losing a few followers or not getting the interaction I normally received. My feedback to myself is to stay consistent and persistent. I cannot truly continue this DA if I do not love it, and of course, through the development of my previous and current DA, I’ve come to enjoy the whole process and can confidently say, I LOVE IT!

The biggest indicator from my audience that suggested I was on the right track was the growth, likes, saved, shares and comments my videos began gaining. This was the best feedback I could have asked for. Of course, comments asking for follow-up content were great! They gave me video ideas and had the commenters come back to my page. Listening to my audience and what they wanted to see was a key factor for the continued return of my followers.

The October Update

I began October with the below statistics.

Now I have ended, well almost ended the month with these statistics.

This progress is amazing, especially for me because it shows me that the advice that I was given and the content I’ve been creating and publishing to my audience are doing well and I’m on the right path.

October saw the biggest growth. I was producing content that was trending and using hashtags that were highly ranked. I found that this month was one worth creating content for because Australian beauty stores were having sales and launching Christmas products. Christmas always has the best deals and therefore makes content recommending products highly ranked. I simply hope that after this DA is submitted, my TikTok page can still grow like that of my TikTok page used as a DA.

Advice to future digital artefacts

Do not start a DA if you strongly do not love the topic. Your DA will feel like a chore if you don’t choose wisely. Begin creating your dream content and do not care what others may think because all that matters is that YOU are proud of yourself and what YOU have produced.

Overall, looking back on my DA, I could not be happier to say that I didn’t feel as though I was impacted by FIFO, that’s an achievement I’m very happy to report. After 3 years and many moments where I felt as though my DA had failed, I’ve finally found a DA that I not only love but am proud of. It certainly wasn’t easy getting here but I’m certainly proud of myself and the perseverance that these last 3 years of creating and publishing content have allowed me to accomplish. When you love what you create, it shows!

TIKTOK PAGE: @oliviajlopez

Beauty Reviews & Hauls September Update

BCM302

September was a good month. My intention was to grow my presence on my TikTok page and that’s exactly what I noticed happen. I found September to be an inspirational month. I had the motivation, the content ideas and the time to create content and post on a consistent schedule which I believe truly helped with the success of September.

I began the month with the following statistics.

And ended the month with these statistics.

September saw a brand reach out to me and challenged me to determine what rates I should charge as a new content creator. Although the offer was discussed and rates were exchanged, the brand never ended up reaching out to me to decline or to negotiate. This tells me maybe I had rates set too high. Nevertheless, this didnt deter me, if that brand didnt see my poential, someone else will.

I never set goals on how many followers I wanted to reach but I decided in September to try to reach 800 followers for October and if I stay as consistent as I was in September, October may be even better than before. My fingers are crossed and hopefully I can reach that milestone.

If you’re not following my page, @oliviajlopez on TikTok!

Peering for the Final Time!

BCM302

I’ve been following Jess Jenkin’s & Georgie O’Brien’s DAs this semester. Jess has and is reigniting her photography Instagram page while Georgie is on the resources team promoting Building 29. While these 2 DAs are different from one another, they share the commonality of following interests of theirs.

Jess has documented her weekly progress update on Twitter in the form of tweet updates with images of the progress she has made or the work she is editing. This was an excellent way to document the progress but I believe that she could have benefited from further interactions on Twitter to promote her Instagram page. I feel this DA could be improved with a collaboration from anyone from the creative services team to provide feedback on her DA or to elevate the experience of the viewer of the page.

Although work has begun on this DA, I feel as though Jess would benefit from truly working on the DA, posting Instagram stories, and more images to her feed or quite possibly seeing a change in the platform she is using to see if her following would grow, as this is something that has not grown at a steady pace. I believe there is a lot of potential in this DA and I truly want to see Jess feel she has created a DA she is proud of, with experience that could assist her in achieving a dream job role. As this is not yet the end of the DA, I hope to see more, but specifically more of what she loves.

My suggestion to improve upon this DA is to reach out yourself to collaborate with a member of the creative services team to enhance your potential future client to fall in love with what you create, and Jess you have some stunning images. I would also suggest trying new platforms to promote your work or a new posting schedule to have more interactions, I’ve found that interactions are extremely helpful. Possibly researching your niche and other creators could help with the DAs development, growth and exposure. My suggestion for this is to try and follow people who are in similar fields to you and see what works well for them and your niche and just give it a go!

Georgie’s DA is already underway with the rest of the Resources Building 29 team. Georgie’s role within this group is the social media content producer and visual design manager. She has used her Twitter weekly updates to promote the UOWbuilding29 Instagram page as she has been creating posts that can be found on the page. I feel as though the page has a strong brand and aesthetic which with the continued development of the social media page should hopefully be recognisable amongst all UOW students in the future.

This DA has progressed steadily and I think it has done well with its branding. I believe Georgie could improve her weekly Twitter updates by submitting them weekly as this is something I have noticed to have been lacking. I appreciate seeing the tweets come through and I can forgive this with the amount of work I can see she has created and posted, but I enjoy seeing everyone’s weekly update at the end of each week.

As our DAs require an element of collaboration, I think it could be interesting to see how Georgie and her team have incorporated that element outside of those who are part of the resources building 29 teams. I think this could help further spread the information being provided about building 29 and the resources it has on offer for UOW students.

As for improvements, I think posting consistent weekly updates, but also I would love to see maybe more about the future of this DA’s development. Are there plans to pass on the social media pages to the next set of 3rd-year students? I think this could be an interesting topic Georgie and her team could discuss and maybe put out on their page to see what others think also.

Overall, the work that has been completed is exciting and honestly looks amazing. I’m very impressed and cannot wait to see these DAs continue to grow. I would love to see these digital artefacts help both these girls get into their dream job roles and enhance their skills in their chosen fields. My big tip for this blog post is to do what you love because when you love what you do, not only does it show but it helps you with your future but it gives you confidence and makes you happy. I’ve learnt the hard way that if I didn’t wholeheartedly love my DA and what I was creating, then it was obvious and minimal if at all happened that felt worth discussing/documenting. I just hope that both Jess and Georgie are loving their DA experience as much as I have this semester!

Beauty Reviews & Hauls August Recap

BCM302

My goal for this subject has been to grow my online presence through my Tiktok page and I have had some progress. I feel like the past month has been going fairly well.

If you didn’t know, I began this DA last year and fell head over heels for the process of creating content featuring beauty products. I have always been that youtube beauty community obsessed girly girl and that really translated into my everyday life where I would document my hauls to my friends on various platforms. In a way, I feel like, and I say this with some hesitation, I feel like I was made to be a content creator/ beauty influencer. For this reason, I felt TikTok would be the perfect location for me to produce content, it’s trending and I can work around my busy work and uni life that it just made sense.

I wanted to accompany my DA with monthly recaps that showed my progress. Regardless of this DA, I was documenting my monthly progress and I wanted to share this with my #BCM302 cohort. I began August with these statistics.

Within the month of August, my best-performing video was actually one that I posted towards the end of the month. https://www.tiktok.com/@oliviajlopez/video/7135791589623942401?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

And I ended the month with these statistics. I had a video begin to pick up again in views and likes and decided to pin the video. It became my highest viewed video and still continues to get interaction and is my first video to hit over 10 000 views. And as you can see, ended with over 18 000 views in August.

All in all, I felt August was a good learning month and allowed me to find new things that worked and I’ve begun testing new hashtag strategies to improve my reach with views which I will elaborate on in September in further detail. August was my month of experimenting and experimenting I did. I’m excited to have more to speak about in my September update!

If you haven’t already and would like to follow along with my journey, you can follow along at @oliviajlopez on TikTok!

Are these the final peer reviews for BCM?

BCM302

I think I say it every round of peer reviews, I never enjoy these. I often feel uncomfortable although I know I am only providing feedback and notes on potential improvements if needed, I can’t help but always feel out of place.

For this round of peer reviews, I have decided to follow Jess Jenkins’ journey on the creative services team. She is providing the service of photography and the development of aesthetics. After viewing and reading the pitch, I felt a bit lost as to what this DA was called and where I could access such a service if I needed to. Although there is a link to a previous DA’s Instagram page, there is no exact place she is advertising her services that make me understand what services are being provided. I felt as though there needed to have a specific platform/s that would showcase what was on offer and potentially clarify how clients would be gained if there were no services being advertised. This I found confusing as I’m struggling to see how I can keep up with her journey in photography and aesthetic development without a defined platform.

It seems as though this DA is something that Jess enjoys and has found a passion for, which is something I love to see when someone is developing a DA. As someone who is not a photographer, I can appreciate the hard work that photography and aesthetic development require, and I look forward to the DA’s growth. I do wonder how this DA assists in Jess’ future. I assume photography is the industry she may like to pursue but she also mentions social media management so I’m curious to see how both of these will relate to one another or if they do, how and why wasn’t this shown in your pitch. I would have enjoyed getting to see what could be created.

This semester I will also be following Georgie O’Brien’s journey on the B29 Resources Team. This DA Pitch was clear and effective in explaining what the purpose of the DA’s development was. As someone who does not have access to building 29 or have any knowledge of what can be found there, this is quite interesting. I enjoyed getting to hear the excitement in Georgie’s pitch video and to be able to see who their target audience is as well as how the B29 resources team intend to get their content across to their audience was really well done. I liked seeing direct links that took me to the platforms that were being used as part of this DA.

I did find the DA pitch video speaking to be a little fast, but this is something I know I commonly happen to do which to me means the person is excited and passionate about their project. This I can forgive because I much prefer to hear a fast speaker than someone who may not actually have any proper interest in their DA. I do question how this DA has relevance for Georgie’s future as promoting UOW’s building 29 is only truly useful if it had a correlation to a future prospect. I assume social media management as Georgie and the team appear to place a strong focus on their social media channels to promote this particular building.

Overall, I’m excited to see what happens next with these 2 DA projects. I chose to follow these as they are quite different to one another but also from my own which could give me inspiration on how I can better develop my DA.

Beauty Hauls & Reviews

BCM302

It is pretty obvious once meeting me that beauty & makeup is more than a love or a passion, it takes up the majority of my life. It is what I dream about in my sleep and what I know in my heart will always keep me sane.

As my DA is a continuation of a previous DA, I wanted to continue to pursue this topic because DAs can feel like a lot of straining work when you start an idea you don’t truly love and have the time or ability to commit to. As this DA ended up becoming a hobby of mine from previous semesters, I know that I can commit to creating and publishing content for BCM302 and truly give it more than just a little bit of thought, I can give it my all.

My strategy for this DA is similar to the strategy I use outside of uni. This means staying up to date with all the latest trends and product launches and creating content to reflect what is trending and new in beauty and makeup. Although this will mean purchasing products to review and haul and therefore can be expensive to keep up with, I know I would have purchased these products regardless if they were for my DA or simply to grow my collection. I love trying new products and growing my makeup collection and in the meantime, I’m getting to help others who view my content, letting them know if what is being featured is worth the splurge. Most times it is but its good to have someone tell you if something is worthless to save you your money because beauty and makeup is not cheap.

I am beginning my DA with these current statistics.

Content will be published daily to my TikTok account @oliviajlopez. I’m always experimenting with the best time to post my content during any day to get the best results and will document my results throughout the progress and duration of this DA. I also hope to find the best hashtag combination for the highest results of views, likes and shares on my content. I hope to document this progress and what I’ve discovered monthly to my blog which I will advertise on my Twitter account for anyone interested in my progress.

Though I’m aiming to continue to grow and build my DA, I am focusing on the development of my online presence on TikTok, but also within the beauty realm. With this, I have identified that I am not aiming for a particular number of views on a video or to reach a particular number of followers, though this is a good way to know that I am building my presence, I am more so looking at the comments, recommendations & suggestions viewers of my content are asking to see from me as a big integral part of my DA’s success. Interaction with anyone consuming my content is important to me as it helps to build my presence in the beauty space on TikTok.

The Future of The Beauty Industry – Contextual Report

BCM325

DA content can be found here: https://www.tiktok.com/@oliviajlopez

Blog Posts – BCM325: https://oliviajlopez.com/

Concept

For my DA, I wanted to focus on the future of the beauty industry. This meant doing research on topics of interest and explaining them in a blog post while also posting TikTok videos to compliment my blog posts. I initially anticipated creating weekly research with a blog post and a minimum of one TikTok video. This changed as I realised my timeline was overestimated. This was all outlined in my pitch.

Methodology

My DA’s initial method was to conduct weekly research, complete a blog post and film a TikTok video. Instead, I decided to complete a 3 blog post series but continue to post beauty-related TikTok videos weekly. This new method for my DA allowed me to research the topics that interested me the most but also allowed me to make crucial observations within my niche. Through this, I was able to make predictions of trends by analysing the videos and the products featured showing me what I needed to create in the beauty TikTok space.

Research

From the research and observations made during my DA, I was able to create content that interested me but also saw me grow as a creator on the platform. The weekly lectures on predictions, trajectories, as well as AI technology assisted me in my blog post series development and are further explained in my DA post.

Social Utility

As this DA is centred around the future of the beauty industry, my DA’s utility is not only going to help others learn about the topics spoken about in my blog post series, but also has personal utility for my future. This DA should hopefully show future employers my dedication to the beauty industry to gain an advantage in my future employment endeavours.

The Future Cultures DA Challenge:

The challenge in this DA was to connect how the future can be represented within the DA. In 1 year, my DA will still be active and will become a more active hobby of mine. In 5 years, this DA has the ability to become a part-time or full-time job which would change the trajectory of my life. In 10 years, this DA could not only become my full-time job but also open up many more opportunities that would yet again open up doors and opportunities that I would only have dreamed of, e.g building my own beauty empire or working closely with my favourite brands. In 25-50 years, my DA could be used as inspiration to other students delving into researching the beauty industry’s past to determine its future.

Successes and Limitations:

My biggest limitation was the lack of time. This limited my ability to stick to my initial plan but brought me my biggest success, the growth and exposure of my TikTok videos. During the DA, I also decided to record my growth which can be found in my 3rd blog post. This for me was a major success and a step closer to being able to do what I love every day.

Another major success was having Sephora like and comment on a video and the chief marketing officer of Rare Beauty, Katie Welch also notice my account.

The Future of the Beauty Industry -DA Recap

BCM325

This semester I focused on the future of the beauty industry, with research blog posts published on my blog but also through observational and participatory research on TikTok. TikTok is in the top 3 social media platforms for marketers to watch in 2022 (Bump, 2021) and has been on the rise since 2020. Being that I enjoy content creation and also study marketing, I understand the importance this platform has to the future of the beauty industry.

Since my pitch, I changed my direction and therefore so did the outcome and the results. I must admit, I always get ahead of myself with my DA timeline. Due to my lifestyle, completing weekly research and filming weekly content for my TikTok alongside lectures, tutorials and other assessments, I decided to reduce the number of blog posts but try my best to continue to maintain weekly content posted to my TikTok account. Although I made the change in the way I completed my DA, the research collection didn’t necessarily change.

With this new direction in mind for the majority of this semester, I was able to focus on producing content for my TikTok account at a consistent level. During this DA process, I wanted to record the progress I was making as this DA is not only about the future of the beauty industry, but also MY future in the beauty industry and trying to find where I fit in within the niche.

I began my DA with the intention to research different areas that would impact the beauty industry and create TikTok videos to embed into the blog posts that discussed a topic in the blog post, which is what I did for my first blog post; What’s Trending within the Cosmetics Industry?

In this blog post, I decided to talk about the trends we should see introduced that will impact the future of the industry. Essentially my blog post looked at the predictions that were being named as the new trends to come or look out for. These trends to summarise the blog post include the discussion on the new makeup trend, the “IT girl” makeup, consisting of natural, dewy and fresh-looking makeup.

To go along with this blog post, I filmed a 4 part “No Makeup Makeup Look” video series showing TikTok my take on the “IT girl” makeup look. In these videos, I also tested some of the popular products that have been commonly found within this beauty trend to test how well they work.

I observed my niche and how viewers interacted with my content and discovered that one of the four videos had a significantly larger amount of interaction than any other video from the mini-series. My assumption is because the first video in the series focused on my base routine for the makeup look whilst using some TikTok favourite products. Complexion products are currently the most popular types of products.

@oliviajlopez
Part 2 is up! #nomakeupmakeup #makeup #beauty #beautyindustry #fypシ #fyp #viral #foryou #foryoupage #glowymakeup #glowyskin #sephorasale2022 #grwm #makeupgrwm #nars #milkmakeup
♬ original sound – olivialopez

Part 1/4

@oliviajlopez
Part 3 is up! #nomakeupmakeup #makeup #beauty #beautyindustry #fypシ #fyp #viral #foryou #foryoupage #glowymakeup #glowyskin #sephorasale2022 #grwm #makeupgrwm #rarebeauty #selenagomez #softpinchliquidblush
♬ original sound – olivialopez

2/4

@oliviajlopez
Part 4 is up! #nomakeupmakeup #makeup #beauty #beautyindustry #fypシ #fyp #viral #foryou #foryoupage #glowymakeup #glowyskin #sephorasale2022 #grwm #makeupgrwm #rarebeauty #selenagomez #positivelight
♬ original sound – olivialopez

3/4

4/4

The second predicted trend was the identification of skincare or skincare ingredients and benefits to be introduced into our cosmetic products. This trend is something I have not only loved to research but have found to personally impact my purchasing choices already in 2022. This is certainly a predicted trend that is coming to fruition due to the demand from consumers.

It was after this blog post I decided that I would reduce the number of blog posts and change the focus to TikTok as this is inevitably where the future of most industries will be found for industries to reach their audiences.

Having been part of this industry since 2014, having seen the youtube era grow and fall and grow again, I have noticed youtube take a significant hit and lose its viewers. This is because of the introduction to shorter form videos such as those found on TikTok which show us how the attention economy has truly begun to take over where it is evident the attention of users using the platform is the product. Attention has become the wanted commodity (Bhargava & Velasquez 2020) by the beauty brands and therefore these brands are ensuring that ads are in direct contact with potential customers.

This realisation led to the second blog post; Who is Changing the Game in the Beauty Industry? My interest peaked as to who has my attention when it comes to the beauty industry? This post delved into the companies who own our beloved beauty brands, social media influencers and social media. To summarise, influencers and social media have grabbed our trust and therefore our attention, ultimately influencing our purchasing decisions. This second blog post had a 2-part TikTok video consisting of the beauty products that influencers influenced me to purchase over the years because I trusted their opinions and reviews and hadn’t been let down.

@oliviajlopez
What have you been influenced to purchase? #influencers #makeup #beautyinfluencer #sephora #foryou #fypシ #OscarsAtHome #beauty #sephoraaustralia #mecca #metgala
♬ original sound – olivialopez

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@oliviajlopez
What have you been influenced to purchase? #influencers #makeup #beautyinfluencer #sephora #foryou #fypシ #OscarsAtHome #beauty #sephoraaustralia #mecca #metgala
♬ original sound – olivialopez

2/2

In my third and final post of this series of blog posts, I wanted to mention my future within the industry. For me, my involvement in the beauty and cosmetics industry is inevitable. Working in some form whether that is in content creation, marketing for a beauty brand, product development, or even just as simple as supporting my favourite beauty brands through my purchases, I will always be involved and will continue to be an active part of the beauty industry.

This blog post saw me show my growth results since beginning my DA and staying more consistent on my profile. Where do I fit in the beauty industry? Will I be a part of it in the future? was my most personal post of the set of 3 posts for this DA. All my DAs have a personal element and for me, this specific post felt the most personal. I felt free enough to open up and speak my truth about what I have always felt was my calling, that is content creation. For me, I hope my future can see me grow in the beauty content creation world.

Through this DA I wanted to be open and honest and be myself. I didn’t want to care about other people and low key in my heart, I knew I wanted to grow my confidence through creating content. Being able to see those who view my profile is nerve-racking but interesting. It showed who supported me through my DA but also made me realise those who simply do not believe that the future is in their hands and through social media. It was during the time that my account had significant growth, that I realised the power I could have with consistency.

Power is always in your hands and the future can change or remain on its course through the power you give to it. For me, this DA was helpful to give me the opportunity to not only observe the future of the industry but also observe the interactions occurring. It is safe to say that although youtube consumption has seen a decrease in the beauty industry, it has certainly seen a large increase over on TikTok.

My DA has helped me this past semester realise that most of the future of this industry is based on predictions that trends and consumer demands either become permanent changes or are a short term trend that comes and goes as quickly as they began. The beauty industry is thorough and planned out. Beauty brands know when and what they will launch to consumers and influencers months if not years in advance and with the continuation of technological improvements in this industry, it is likely that what we know as the “beauty standards” of today as the ideal, will inevitably change as brands grow and so too their audience.

The lecture content this semester had a few key areas that had a connection or a connection could be made to the weekly topic. The trajectory of the industry is evidently focused on new innovations and the continued use of social media for brand awareness through the observations I made as an active member of TikTok.

All beauty brands have a unique calendar for their product launches, something only a futurist would be able to assist in its planning. Predictions and assumptions are made in a way that almost every brand in the industry will launch a similar style of product around the same time. I cover this in my second blog post. The future of the beauty industry will also see and has been predicted since 2020, the more common use of AI technology, colour matching foundations to our faces or simply applying lipstick without having to physically apply the lipstick. This is seeing significant growth since the beginning of the pandemic as consumers were unable to go to their local stores to test the products.

Although our futures don’t always go as we plan them, one thing I know for sure is my involvement in the beauty industry. Some way or another, I hope to find myself in a position where I am able to do what I love each and every day within this industry. The future of beauty is one to certainly watch out for.

References:

Bump, P 2021, 7 New Social Media Platforms Marketers Should Watch in 2022, Hubspot.com, HubSpot, viewed 22 May 2022, <https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/new-social-media>.‌

Bhargava, VR & Velasquez, M 2020, ‘Ethics of the Attention Economy: The Problem of Social Media Addiction’, Business Ethics Quarterly, pp. 1–39, viewed 23 May 2022, <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-ethics-quarterly/article/ethics-of-the-attention-economy-the-problem-of-social-mediaaddiction/1CC67609A12E9A912BB8A291FDFFE799>

Where do I fit in the beauty industry? Will I be a part of it in the future?

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To close off my DA, I wanted to talk about my future in the beauty industry. To be clear, this is ultimately the industry I hope to work in. With my DA blog posts, I wanted to research the industry and decided to also use TikTok to create content and become a more active member of the beauty industry, most often referred to as the beauty community.

Aside from working in the industry with the hope to work in marketing and advertising, I have always dreamed of working in the content creator realm. I want to make mention of my past because I feel as though this is important for context as to why I feel the way I feel.

Since my introduction to makeup tutorials on youtube back in 2014, I have always loved the idea of creating and posting videos. Still, as a young 13-year-old, the idea of posting content on the internet when I was a shy girl, who kept to herself always scared me. Filming was always fun, but I had no idea how to edit a video or how to upload a video, which over the years I taught myself but was never brave enough to finally post.

In a previous DA, I did finally decide to post beauty videos to youtube but keeping up with filming, editing, uni, a job, a global pandemic and all the craziness in between made the process difficult and it was during that same time, that TikTok was taking off. It was at that moment that I felt I could post beauty content, content free of judgement from those around me. Since then, I have come to love the process of creating content a lot more and because of this, I believe that TikTok content creation is part of my future in this industry.

I made a goal at the beginning of 2022 to consistently post to TikTok.Many people have new years resolutions, I spend my first days of the new year writing up goals that I feel are realistic, growing my tiktok account was one of them. Since January 3rd, I have logged my statistics to see the growth month after month which encourages me to continue to create content.

I didn’t set a specific number of followers or a specific number of views, but I set the goal to be consistent. This has actually been something I can confidently say I have stuck to. Now I may not post daily, but I post to the platform without feeling anxious about what people think because I have come to realise that this is part of my future and you cannot achieve your goals or dreams without action.

So far these are the statistics that I’ve collected since the beginning of the year. These are not all precisely tracked.

My ultimate goal, alongside content creation, has always been to work for a beauty brand and if we’re being specific, Too Faced. Their motto is Own Your Pretty and I felt that that was an important message. I bought every product (still purchase from them just not as often) and was so obsessed with the brand that when I met their Executive Director Global Beauty and makeup artist Elyse Reneau, I 110% freaked out and of course immediately told her I wanted to work with Too Faced. We talked about the different ways I could work for the brand which ultimately meant working for Mecca, which of course, I’m not going to complain about.

The point of this post isn’t to brag about my love for content creation, or followers (they’re not that impressive yet), but for me to have something to look back on when I’m working for a beauty brand of my dreams or living my dream of content creation or maybe owning my own beauty brand and being my own girl boss.

The point of this DA wasn’t to just research the future of the beauty industry and document it, but to also continue working on what I hope to spend the majority of my life doing. Working or simply being a part of the beauty industry.

My future will always include the beauty industry in some form or another but how I get to the top positions is something I cannot specifically outline because the future is not set in stone. What I do know, is my participation, love and passion I confirmed over 7 years ago.

Beauty is my life, it’s what makes me most excited and calms me down during moments of panic. The love I have for beauty is on the same level as my love for Ariana Grande, my dog Mollie and course my family, and for that, I’m certain that my future will always include the beauty industry.

My OVERLY Large Personal Makeup Collection

Are you TWEETING me?

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Live-tweeting this second half of the semester was a very different experience in comparison to the first half. This time around, I felt a little more confident and understood more of what was expected. I even found a little routine that allowed me to generate tweets prior to our viewing of the weekly film and still engage with my peers.

Looking back on each week I began to realise the connection between the weekly lecture topic and the film we watched if I hadn’t seen the lecture prior to the film I didn’t pick up the connection which was something I experienced in the earlier half of our viewings.

The task of tweeting and engaging with these films whilst also making connections to the lecture material was a challenge. I found myself wanting to watch the films and soak up what was being communicated without forgetting to tweet and interact with my peers and the connections they were making and often found that I would read movie reviews and analyses the night before to prepare tweets and tweet them at the perfect moments.

Looking back on each week, I found there were moments that truly stood out to me.

Robot and Frank (2012) Week 6

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This week was centred on artificial intelligence, Robot and Frank truly showed us a future that is not only possible but also positive. Aside from the stealing, the fundamental value that our future will rely on artificial intelligence in the form of a robot similar to Robot is not only a future we should look forward to but one with many benefits for all ages not just for our elderly. It shows us that our futures may not actually be as different or as dystopian as other films depict our futures to look like and for this I found this film to be one that made me look forward to our future. Artificial intelligence doesn’t have to be negative or completely change our lives for the worse, it’s there to prevent human error, being available 24/7 or for the simple fact that for those tasks that humans may not be able to complete AI is there to assist (Kumar 2019).

Arrival 2016 (Week 8)

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Arrival was a film with a slow start. It was highly emotional and focused on that highly interesting question, are aliens real? Futurists use their curiosity to gain knowledge about what’s to come. They anticipate future scenarios and Dr Louise Banks did just that. She used her knowledge and communicative skills and was able to communicate with the Aliens and was given the opportunity to see her own future. The future she was seeing was one she decided to continue rather than alter her destined future. This film showed us the probable, the possible and the preferable.

Alita Battle Angel 2019 (Week 9)

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Alita Battle Angel made me think about the people we already have in our society. If a cyborg is defined as having both human organic elements and biochemical components, this would mean any person with an artificial limb fits within the definition of a cyborg. With this in mind, people with artificial limbs do not yet possess the physical abilities that Alita had. This area of technology has so much yet to continue to develop making it a very important and interesting area to watch out for, we may one day just have our very own version of Alita.

Ready Player One 2018 Week 10

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Ready Player One invites the thoughts of virtual reality and cyberspace to us in a way that makes us realise this is our future. Our cyberspace worlds already exist, they may not exist in the exact same way as The Oasis, but we already have The Metaverse from Facebook and of course the virtual reality games. We can even look at our social media platforms as cyberspace, where we can reinvent ourselves if we wish, and only show who and what we want to one another.

This round of live-tweeting was more insightful and enjoyable. The films felt to me to be more realistic accounts of where our future could evolve towards. The advancements we have had in technology make the potential of the futures found in these films feel more achievable. These advancements seem more probable to occur because they have better CGI and special effects that make the events in the films appear more believable and thus also making them more enjoyable to consume.

The lecture content correlated perfectly with each of our films and made me begin to imagine the possibilities that could become our future. Cyberspace and artificial intelligence feel more inevitable than the arrival of aliens and changing our destined future or the emergence of cyborgs like Alita, but we never know when a new life form may enter earth or become lab-grown/sewn. This is where we truly need futurists to plan and think through ways to live through such events. This task has made me question all aspects of life and for that I’m grateful.

References

Kumar 2019, Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence, Medium, Towards Data Science, viewed 16 May 2022, <https://towardsdatascience.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-artificial-intelligence-182a5ef6588c>.