064 - Essence Gant of BuzzFeed - Beauty Buzz

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What it takes for beauty brands to grab the attention of BuzzFeed, what kind of posts perform best (and when they fall flat), diversity as a priority, the choice to use real people instead of models, a new lifestyle platform, and the journey from social work to BuzzFeed…

Essence Gant, Senior Beauty Editor for BuzzFeed (an Internet media and news company based in New York with a focus on digital media) joins Regina Gwynn, Abby Wallach, and April Franzino in the MouthMedia Network studios powered by Sennheiser.

In this episode:

Making sure all diverse voices are heard in beauty narrative
Diversity as a priority from the beginning has been part of success
Videos a big part of communication—don’t really use models—they use each other
Real beauty, real people, real talk
Trying to be funny
Anything that they really love and lives up the hype—performs well
Stories vs. tips doing well, products do well, consumer audience
The journey from social work to buzzfeed
Launched womens lifestyle platform in March
“As Is”
More thoughtful conversation about beauty
What gets attention with products to cover
Whats special about brand, sticks out from the rest
Why BuzzFeed will cover super indie brands
The impact of giving attention to small brands, and how it can transform their business
When content falls flat
Depends on what’s going on in world at moment, timing
You know beauty when you seeit, finding beauty at Afropunk
Instagram is pretty, and insane nails from Cardi B’s nail artist
Why reflection is so important to success