No borders when it comes to social media beauty trends

Can’t find your favourite moisturizer or mascara in a store? Social media may be to blame.

Videos featuring beauty products are more popular than ever and people are buying them up.

Marjorie Delbaere, associate dean of research and associate professor at the Edwards School of Business, says social media influencers are helping us decide where to spend our money. And she says the trend is something marketers are constantly trying to learn more about.

“When people we admire talk about different brands on social media platforms, that has a very big influence on our decisions as consumers in terms of what brands we actually use and what we go out and buy,” Delbaere said.

And she says it’s because we think we have a relationship or friendship with people we commonly see on social media, whether that’s real or just how we feel.

“People that are active online and on social media talking about different beauty trends and beauty products, they have really large followings and it’s because they have this recognized expertise or really deep interest in that topic of beauty and so we listen to them and we trust them when they say things,” Delbaere said.

The most popular kinds of videos are “hauls,” in which influencers talks about a bunch of things they just bought or when they list off their favourite products.

Social media influence is not limited to geography so we are seeing these outages and trends in Saskatchewan.

One product that’s hard to come by locally is CeraVe, which makes cleansers, moisturizers and serums.

According to one Saskatoon Shoppers Drug Mart, the products are out of stock due to excessive consumer demand from social media activity. Supply challenges are expected to continue for months.