As a licensed esthetician, we know that you are passionate about skincare. You share your skincare knowledge with your clients every day, giving them tips and advice to help them feel beautiful in the skin they have. At this point in your career, you may be wanting to take the next step and work your way toward a higher level of income. You look around and see all these skincare influencers on TikTok and Instagram, and think “I wish I could do that” or maybe even “wow they are so off with some of their advice”
So, what’s an esthetician to do? We recommend that you take that leap. Start up your social media channel of choice and start posting. With your knowledge and personality, you will stand out in the skincare niche and before long you will be running the game.
If you’re interested in becoming a skincare influencer, here are a few tips to get you started.
Tips for Estheticians Wanting to Become an Influencer
Skincare influencers share their personal tips, advice, and stories in order to help their audience find what works for them. It is honestly not much different than what you already do on a daily basis as a licensed esthetician. So why not take all that knowledge, passion, and experience and translate it into another form of income?
Pick Your Platforms and Get Started
The hardest part of becoming a skincare influencer is simply getting started. So many people overthink it. They want to have everything perfectly ready and set up before they ever hit record or post that first photo, but perfection is the enemy of progress.
Your first step is to simply get started. Choose which social media platform or platforms you want to focus on, and hit the ground running. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you will learn as you go. If you wait for everything to be perfect, you will never get started.
We recommend that you start with one, maybe two, core social media platforms to focus on. This could be your esthetician Instagram account, a TikTok channel, or even a skincare YouTube. The platform itself is really up to you and what you are comfortable with, but starting with one or two will ensure that you have the time to really focus on growing and posting content.
Most people who start by posting on multiple platforms, burn themselves out quickly. You are already running an esthetician business, so you don’t want to overload your plate during your skincare influencer journey.
Pick a Skincare Niche
You have your social media platform of choice ready to go, now you need to pick a niche. Wait? A skincare niche? Isn’t skincare the niche? Well, yes and no. There are a lot of skincare and beauty influencers out there on the internet, and if you go into the community with a very broad niche of just skincare, then it is highly likely that you will get drowned out by all the noise. But if you pick a very specific aspect of skincare to focus on, then you will stand out and rapidly grow your audience.
If you are having trouble picking a skincare niche, here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Skincare based on skin type (oily, dry, combination, etc)
- Skincare based on ethnicity (African American, Indian, Native American, etc)
- Specific skincare product reviews (organic, budget products, luxury skincare, cruelty-free, etc)
- Skincare based on a specific condition (Vitiligo, Eczema, Acne, Melasma, etc)
- Waxing specialty
Having a very specific niche will keep you focused and help you grow your influencer business. You can see from the list above that there is an endless amount of skincare specialties that you can choose from. Since you are a highly knowledgeable esthetician business owner already, you could even take that knowledge and share it with other estheticians making your niche helping up-and-coming estheticians learn how to become an esthetician and grow their esthetician business to $100K.
Network and Collaborate with other Esthetician Influencers
It isn’t enough to just post on social media and hope to grow. If you truly want to become a successful esthetician influencer, then you need to take the social in social media seriously and collaborate.
Creating joint content with other skincare influencers can help you grow your own community, expand your reach, and learn something new about being an influencer. After all, social media is all about building relationships, and there is no better way to do so than to collaborate and network.
Reach out to other influencers in your niche and see if they would like to do a joint video, a skincare giveaway, or a Q&A live stream with you. Being seen as an active member of the community can only help you grow, both as a content creator and as an esthetician.
Use Your Education to Your Advantage
In a sea of beauty and skincare influencers, you will set yourself apart by making sure you let your growing audience know that you are a true expert. As a licensed esthetician, you have the education to back up your opinions. The vast majority of current skincare influencers are hobbyists. They are skincare enthusiasts, but they don’t have the education to put weight behind their words.
With your education and knowledge, you can really bring a lot to the table, and you need to make sure people know that. It can be hard to talk about yourself, but there is no better place to hype yourself up than on social media
Share your credentials. Let people know that you have been a professional esthetician for many years and that you are speaking from a place of personal and professional experience. It is important to stand out when trying to become a skincare influencer, and you have just the thing to do so.
Promote What You Love
Aside from growing your presence and sharing your expertise, the most important part of being an influencer is to remain authentic at all times. Your audience will know if you aren’t being true to yourself, so it is important to always just be you.
This is especially true when it comes to promoting products. As you grow, you will be approached by a vast number of companies wanting to send you free products or even pay you to promote them on your social media platforms. While this will feel thrilling at first, it is essential that you not accept every sponsorship that comes your way.
Make sure you are only talking about products that you truly love and recommend, and say no to any companies that you just don’t feel are a good fit.
There is a lot of money to be made within the skincare influencing industry, and just because you say no to one company, doesn’t mean there won’t be other opportunities with brands that better fit with your personal brand.
You don’t have to wait for companies to approach you to share what you love and make some extra money from it though. Many of these brands and products you already love also probably have affiliate programs where you can make a commission any time someone purchases through your link. This is an excellent way to share what you love and make a little extra income!
For example, at PocketSuite, we have an affiliate program where all of our pros can make extra money any time someone signs up through their unique link. So if you are an esthetician already using and loving the PocketSuite esthetician booking app, you can talk about it in your content, help other estheticians learn effective ways to run their businesses and make extra money for yourself all at the same time.
Getting Informal, Celebrating Your Personality
The business of skincare may be scientific and clinical, but as you know, people often feel more comfortable in your treatment room when you make them feel comfortable. Many skincare influencers do a great job posting off-topic content that shows off their unique personality. Still others make it seem really fun and make jokes about their work. If this kind of content sounds right for you, embrace it.
A great way to stand out as a skincare influencer is to stay true to your own personality. Focus on creating the kind of content that you’re passionate about and make sure that it reflects who you are. Focus on creating engaging videos and photos, celebrating your own unique style. Not only will this make your branding easier, but it will also attract viewers that connect with you as a person, making them more likely to trust you as an influencer.
Social Media Equipment
If you’re going to become a skincare influencer, it’s important to have the right equipment for social media. Invest in a quality camera and an appropriate tripod for filming. Make sure you also have good lighting so that your viewers can clearly see what you’re doing in any videos. Additionally, consider buying some editing software to make sure that your content is professional-looking. Finally, don’t forget to invest in some props and backdrops as well, as these will help support your content and make it even more engaging!
So if you are ready to make the leap and become an esthetician turned skincare influencer, we say go for it. You already have all the skills and knowledge you need to be successful, and here at PocketSuite, we support all of our esthetician influencer pros through social promotion, an affiliate program, and helpful tips to grow your business.
