Success Story: Makeup Minutes
Last summer, Chicago based Brianna Thompson had been perfecting her business plan, building an inventory of fantastic ideas and spending time developing unique and appealing content for her one-day audience. By trade she is a make up artist and a lover of all things that make a girl beautiful and more importantly feel beautiful. She even had potential investors waiting in the hall for news of her launch. Like many of us who have a business idea, she wanted to know was if her “brilliant” ideas were in fact brilliant. Launching a business, regardless of the research she could acquire, would never really tell you what works and doesn’t until you’ve put quite a few dollars and a tremendous amount of time into it. She decided instead to take the pulse of what her target audience wanted and she did this by starting a facebook page. “Social media was going to be really important because it was going to be the fastest way possible to know if viewers would like our concept.” Brianna explains.
At the beginning of this year, she started with facebook and invited her close friends and family. She quickly found that there was a very interested market crowding around her page. “Women love make up and it’s something that is constantly changing. It has changed tremendously in the last 4 years as buying online has skyrocketed and brands in drug stores have become competition for some department stores brands which are much more pricey.” Brianna saw that the ever-changing make up trends and her “tutorials” (nicely executed video clips of “how to’s” for make up) were what people gravitated toward.
MakeUp Minutes has grown virally to over 5,000 followers and active engaged fans. Her business was taking off and very quickly Brianna found herself needing a management tool to help her. “I had been using a social media tool that was very expensive,” Brianna felt stuck, her business relied on facebook but her bank account could not support the management of it. “I was so happy when I found Roost,” says Brianna who saw an article on Shecky’s facebook page announcing its use of the new product and she decided to try it. “I created an account and just figured it out.” Brianna understands her page is successful because people feel like they’re connected to someone. The Make Up Minutes woman on the videos is the same person answering my questions online. “With Roost I’m able to control everything, if I hire someone I'd have to explain how I’m feeling, my vision… and I just can’t teach someone to be me.”
About Roost
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Roost is a new social marketing platform that helps small businesses and independent professionals manage their social presence and engage with their customers across key social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. The company is venture capital funded by Shasta Ventures and General Catalyst. Turn social into business at www.roost.com.
About Makeup Minutes
Makeup Minutes is centered on making her audience feel good about themselves and as many of us ladies can attest, getting dolled up is the quickest way to feeling pretty. Make Up Minutes facebook page says, “being beautiful is easy! It only takes a new lipstick shade, or a new eye shadow to bring out the glamorous YOU!”