Sharpen your brow pencils and top up your perfume, because it’s officially time for our exclusive ranking of the top beauty brands on social media!
We studied more beauty brands than ever before to bring you the top rankings, campaigns, brands, and of course social media benchmarks for all of your favorite beauty brands. Check in on brands like Rare Beauty, Fenty Beauty, Sol de Janeiro and so many more to see which brands are standing out on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
Overall Top 10 Beauty Brands on Social Media
Rare Beauty won the overall gold for the second year while edging out second place Fenty Beauty for the second year in a row. Sol de Janeiro moved up a few spots to grab the bronze. Congrats to Glow Recipe, e.l.f. Cosmetics, and Charlotte Tilbury who moved up the ranks in a major way to break into the overall top 10. Huda Beauty, LANEIGE, OPI, and Glossier juggled spots a bit, but still managed to remain beauty social media royalty this year.
| Overall Rank | Beauty Brands | Rank | Rank | Rank | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rare Beauty | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Fenty Beauty | 7 | 2 | 10 | 5 |
| 3 | Sol de Janeiro | 3 | 3 | 2 | 90 |
| 4 | Glow Recipe | 8 | 5 | 9 | 26 |
| 5 | Huda Beauty | 2 | 6 | 61 | 3 |
| 6 | e.l.f. Cosmetics | 12 | 9 | 16 | 15 |
| 7 | LANEIGE | 4 | 8 | 51 | 30 |
| 8 | OPI | 6 | 15 | 21 | 32 |
| 9 | Glossier | 5 | 23 | 25 | 9 |
| 10 | Charlotte Tilbury | 19 | 13 | 19 | 17 |
What does it take to land in our beauty social media top 10? Strong finishes on at least three channels had Rare Beauty, Fenty Beauty, Sol de Janeiro, Glow Recipe, and Huda Beauty sitting pretty. Other beauty brands stood out on one or two channels in a big way, but couldn’t quite manage the sweep. This mix of all-around champs and channel specialists is a good reminder for beauty brands that making content that resonates with your audience on the channels that matter most to them is the smartest strategy, even if it means investing less in channels that aren’t as relevant to your followers.
Top overall beauty brand: Rare Beauty
Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty had a dynamite year (again!), grabbing first overall and the gold on three out of four channels we studied. Who would’ve thought the brand could top their killer finishes in last year’s report, but they somehow made it happen by moving up to first on both Instagram and TikTok (while dropping a spot to second on Twitter). The Rare Beauty team is consistent, strategic, engaging, and makes serious hay with content featuring the brand’s celeb founder.
Rare Beauty increased their Instagram ranking this year to snag the gold on this uber-important channel for beauty brands thanks to photo posts like this one featuring the founder herself. Followers loved seeing their favorite beauty founder all dolled up for big events like the VMAs in head-to-toe Rare Beauty (of course). The photo post earned an impressive 32% engagement rate by follower and had more than 33 million estimated impressions thanks to a right place, right time behind-the-scenes snap from someone on her glam squad.
With social media continuing to change year over year, many brands including Rare Beauty are leaning more into cross-promotion. This top-performing TIkTok featuring a quick clip of Gomez speaking directly to the camera cross-promoted YouTube in the caption. The video grabbed a 15.7% engagement rate while simultaneously driving already-devoted fans over to Rare Beauty’s YouTube channel for double the engagement fun. Beauty brands are keeping their ears to the ground on all things social media, and long-form content on channels like YouTube is undeniably on the rise.
Speaking of cross-promotion, Rare Beauty’s third most engaging post by rate on Facebook encouraged fans to hop over to TikTok for exclusive content from the brand’s Rare Impact Fund Benefit. Social channels have traditionally discouraged cross-promotion like this, preferring instead to keep users to themselves, but offering content followers can’t find anywhere else successfully tempted fans to engage with the post and head over to the clock app.
Anybody who spent even a minute on beauty social media this year will be familiar with Rare Beauty’s big release of their Tinted Lip Oil. This teasing tweet earned an impressive 6.95% engagement rate and more than a million impressions with nothing more than a close-up and the promise of something good to come. Beauty brands are some of the best out there at stirring up excitement for a fun new release, and Rare Beauty knows just how to do it.
Top Beauty Trend: Holidays
Holidays are a tried-and-true trend across a wide variety of industries for a reason: giving people a relatable reason to think about your brand or product, especially around gifting holidays like Christmas or Mother’s Day, is always a safe bet for brands.
Our Post Tag Analysis shows beauty brands saw a 2.14x engagement rate lift over the per-post average with a mention or shout-out of holidays throughout the year.
K-Beauty brand LANEIGE earned 7th overall and 8th on TikTok thanks to smart holiday videos like this one all about Valentine’s Day. The video earned a 10.1% engagement rate by view and more than 200K views by reminding followers that their pink product line would be a perfect gift for V-Day. The video is simple and low-tech, featuring a POV shot of LANEIGE products being wrapped. LANEIGE upped the engagement on the video by diligently replying to tons of comments on the video, reminding us that community management can really pay off for beauty brands.
Tower28 Beauty celebrated Lunar New Year with an enticing giveaway that engaged fans to the tune of a 26.3% engagement rate lift on Instagram. The easy-to-enter giveaway earned the brand tons of comments and new followers, and cross-promoting with trendy sweatshirt brand The Mayfair Group further upped the giveaway’s juice for the brand. Tying in giveaways and even product releases has worked for beauty brands for years and remains just as relevant as ever in 2024.
Top Beauty Trend: Contest and giveaways
Giveaways are a fantastic way to build your beauty brand’s following, re-engage a lackluster fanbase, and push out new products (or outdated ones) to your community. Contests and giveaways engender an engagement rate lift on all four channels we studied in this report for beauty brands and aren’t going away anytime soon.
Sol de Janeiro earned 3rd place overall and 3rd on Instagram thanks in part to giveaway posts like this one where followers entered for a chance to win a set of the brand’s all-time favorite products. The Instagram post rocked a 17.1% engagement rate and nearly 70K entries–and don’t even get us started on the nearly 6M estimated impressions. Many of SDJ’s top-performing posts by engagement rate featured a giveaway, and with those numbers, we can see why the brand holds contests so regularly.
Kim Kardashian’s relaunched beauty brand SKKN BY KIM landed in the 18th spot overall this year and 4th on Facebook thanks in part to posts like this anniversary giveaway. The contest celebrated the brand’s first year with a signed swag pack of tons of their fan-fave products. With nearly 40K views and an engagement rate more than 150x the beauty brand median on Facebook, it’s safe to say SKKN BY KIM knows how to celebrate a birthday.
Top Beauty Trend: Famous brand ambassadors
With Rare Beauty, Fenty Beauty, and Huda Beauty fighting for the top spot year after year, it’s no surprise that celebrity founders can lead to huge engagement rate boosts for beauty brands. But if your beauty brand isn’t blessed with a famous founder, you have options. Many beauty brands engaged with recognizable brand ambassadors from celebs to influencers to micro-influencers and beyond this year to bring cachet to their brands.
Arguably the most recognizable beauty ambassador today is Selena Gomez, repping for Rare Beauty. As we saw above, Rare Beauty grabbed the overall top spot thanks to Selena’s talent and enthusiasm. This TikTok in honor of the celeb’s birthday is an ode to all things Selena, featuring a few memorable moments with the celeb over the year. The video earned a 16.1% engagement rate by view and more than a million views thanks to Selena’s approachability, silliness, and love for fun.
Many of LANEIGE’s top posts by engagement rate featured beloved actress Sydney Sweeney, who’s been a steady part of the brand’s marketing for the better part of two years. Sweeney went global this year after promoting LANEIGE’s US-based brand, suggesting there’s something for everyone in the ongoing partnership. This behind-the-scenes Reel featuring a photoshoot for the brand’s latest moisturizer got fans talking and earned a staggering 124% engagement rate by follower. Not every celeb is right for every beauty brand, but when you can find the right one for your brand and nurture the relationship over time, the dividends can be huge.
Top Beauty Brands on Social: Instagram
Rare Beauty, we see you grabbing the Instagram gold out of Huda Beauty’s hands after being narrowly defeated last year. Sol de Janeiro moved up four spots to snag the bronze. Stalwarts LANEIGE, Glossier, OPI, and Fenty Beauty remained in the top 10, while Glow Recipe, Drunk Elephant, and Etude House edged out last year’s winners.
| Rank | Company | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by Follower |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rare Beauty | 64,966,650 | 1.80% |
| 2 | Huda Beauty | 16,541,263 | 2.78% |
| 3 | Sol de Janeiro | 10,441,455 | 2.95% |
| 4 | LANEIGE | 6,547,727 | 2.25% |
| 5 | Glossier | 7,332,701 | 0.57% |
| 6 | OPI | 5,343,522 | 0.80% |
| 7 | Fenty Beauty | 39,461,655 | 0.32% |
| 8 | Glow Recipe | 3,575,221 | 0.75% |
| 9 | Drunk Elephant | 4,384,953 | 0.56% |
| 10 | Etude House | 2,797,457 | 0.59% |
Beauty brands averaged an Instagram engagement rate of 0.14%, which is down 26% from last year’s 0.19% average. Nobody likes a decline, but it’s interesting to note that brands are posting just as frequently on Instagram as last year at around once per day.
Featured beauty brand: Huda Beauty
Celeb founders are everywhere in the beauty industry, but Huda Beauty’s social handles seem extra representative of famous founder Huda Kattan. The brand consistently stands out from more product-focused competitors thanks to posting that blurs the line between beauty brand and the person behind the account, especially this year with Huda’s focus on speaking up for Palestine. The brand averaged 8x more total engagement and engagement rate by follower than the average beauty brand we studied this year, which is no surprise with so much posting about a divisive and important topic. It’s also worth noting that Huda Beauty has twice as many followers on Instagram as the average beauty brand, suggesting that there’s a huge audience for Huda’s particular brand of posting.
Many of Huda Beauty’s most engaging posts by both total and rate were in support of Gaza and Palestine, and occasionally made no mention of beauty or the brand’s products whatsoever such as this one. The post earned a 14.1% engagement rate, which is 100x the engagement rate of the average Instagram beauty post this year. Brands across all industries make the hard choice every day about whether or not to wade into politics, injustice, and activism around the world. While many choose neutrality or opting out, Huda went all in with her support for Palestine this year, and engendered a ton of conversation among her followers.
Huda found lots of different ways to be an activist for Palestine, including posts like these that tied in beauty with the events in Gaza. This Reel grabbed an impressive 6.87% engagement rate and also generated a ton of UGC thanks to the #WatermelonBlush hashtag and request from Huda herself to see similarly-inspired looks. The comments on this post were of course filled with discourse and disagreement, but Huda’s consistent follower growth means the brand is still reaching many more people than it’s losing.
Longtime Huda Beauty followers will recognize posts like this that focus on the celeb’s family and personal life. This post wishing Huda’s sister Alya a happy birthday features the joyful Kattan family and more balloons than we could count and rocked an engagement rate of 6.32%, which is more than 45x the beauty median. Fans and well-wishers jumped into the comments to wish Alya a happy birthday. Huda’s mix of personal and professional is unique to the brand and stands out from what many other beauty brands are up to on social in 2024.
Top Beauty Brands on Social: TikTok
Rare Beauty takes the gold on TikTok this year after a second-place finish last year. 2023 TikTok winner Kylie Cosmetics didn’t make the TikTok top 10 this year, but Fenty Beauty, Huda Beauty, Sol de Janeiro, and LANEIGE all managed to repeat their strong finishes again this year. Patrick Ta, Glow Recipe, Etude House, e.l.f. Cosmetics, and Tower28 Beauty dethroned a few of the greats and broke into the TikTok top 10 this year.
| Rank | Company | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by View* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rare Beauty | 28,830,702 | 9.76% |
| 2 | Fenty Beauty | 28,588,807 | 9.02% |
| 3 | Sol de Janeiro | 15,139,313 | 8.12% |
| 4 | Patrick Ta | 16,628,066 | 8.02% |
| 5 | Glow Recipe | 7,795,851 | 7.93% |
| 6 | Huda Beauty | 19,782,809 | 6.48% |
| 7 | Etude House | 3,158,678 | 10.26% |
| 8 | LANEIGE | 7,410,434 | 6.42% |
| 9 | e.l.f. Cosmetics | 13,473,608 | 4.24% |
| 10 | Tower28 Beauty | 1,109,936 | 8.91% |
Beauty brands earned a median engagement rate by view of 2.05% this year, which is about 30% lower than last year’s engagement rate by view of 2.94%. TikTok is still the most engaging channel for beauty brands by rate, and brands are investing in it at almost twice the rate of last year with about 4.5 videos per week.
Featured beauty brand: Fenty Beauty
Fenty absolutely crushes it on TikTok, and this year is no exception. Rihanna’s beauty brand went from third on TikTok to second this year with eye-watering successes like 10x the followers of the average beauty brand, 2x the videos, 28x the total engagement, and 7x the views. Fenty also had the most engaging TikTok in the landscape and a whopping 7 of 20 of the top videos by engagement total, which all adds up to absolute domination on TikTok. Videos featuring Rihanna were of course engagement juggernauts, especially after her 2023 Super Bowl appearance. Fans also ate up posts about sales, giveaways, and more than a few makeup tutorials.
This TikTok couldn’t be simpler: just a stop motion zoom in and out on a locker filled with Fenty’s famous Gloss Bomb. The video earned an impressive 22.3% engagement rate by view and more than 611K views thanks to a few key strategies. Re-releasing limited edition shades stirred up some serious excitement, as did pairing the re-release with a giveaway. Fenty is a consistent powerhouse in the world of beauty social media, but simple videos like this are a good reminder that you don’t need high production values to release valuable and engaging content to your followers.
Not every beauty brand enjoys product placement at the Super Bowl halftime show, but Fenty Beauty took the ball and ran with it, posting videos about Rihanna’s performance (and Fenty re-application mid-show) all year long. This video featuring fun behind-the-scenes footage rocked a 19.9% engagement rate by view, which is nearly 10x the beauty industry median this year. Fans loved getting to peek behind the curtain and jumped into the comments to call out their favorite Fenty shade or to spot their favorite beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira.
Are you even on beauty social media if you’re not featuring BTS footage of your celeb founder getting ready for a big event in full glam? This quick video of Rihanna spraying more than her fair share of Fenty Parfum walked the line between behind-the-scenes and going full meme. The video earned a 15.5% engagement rate by view and more than 25 million (!) views as thousands of fans commented about everything from their love for RiRi to how many spritzes of perfume they prefer. Celeb founder content isn’t in reach for every beauty brand on social media, but brands like Fenty definitely make the most of it with videos like this.
Top Beauty Brands on Social: Facebook
Another day, another Rare Beauty win, with Sol de Janeiro hot on Selena’s brand’s heels once again. Mary Kay came in third, with a far stronger finish on Facebook than any of the other channels we studied this year. SKKN BY KIM and Fenty Beauty repeated finishes in the top 10 again, while The Lip Bar, Estée Lauder, NYX Cosmetics, Honest Beauty, and Glow Recipe shook up the Facebook rankings in a big way.
| Rank | Company | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by Follower |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rare Beauty | 471,020 | 1.646% |
| 2 | Sol de Janeiro | 51,582 | 0.382% |
| 3 | Mary Kay | 918,550 | 0.073% |
| 4 | SKKN BY KIM | 39,183 | 0.628% |
| 5 | The Lip Bar | 46,118 | 0.211% |
| 6 | Estée Lauder | 338,951 | 0.060% |
| 7 | NYX Cosmetics | 1,162,244 | 0.046% |
| 8 | Honest Beauty | 246,596 | 0.056% |
| 9 | Glow Recipe | 42,036 | 0.146% |
| 10 | Fenty Beauty | 30,214 | 0.366% |
Engagement rates were just 0.02% on Facebook this year, which is down from 0.03% last year. Brands also halved their posting on this channel by posting just twice per week. Posting has halved consistently the last two years running, indicating Facebook is less relevant to beauty brands than it used to be.
Featured beauty brand: Sol de Janeiro
Sol de Janeiro moved up from 10th to 2nd this year on Facebook thanks in huge part to their small but mighty following. Their rabid fanbase ate up SDJ’s posts on Facebook this year, helping the brand earn 5x the engagement rate of their peers despite posting just a third as often. The skincare and fragrance brand was all about the new releases and product teases this year, which helped SDJ fans find room in their lives for yet another new scent or product.
This photo post revealing their newest scent earned an impressive 1.25% engagement rate, which is 75x the beauty median for the year. Fans were excited to inquire about where and when they could get their hands on the new scent, and also weren’t afraid of an excited “I need this now!” comment. SDJ releases new products consistently and finds plenty of fun and simple ways to hype up fans around the latest product drop.
SDJ’s Facebook followers are well-accustomed to getting their fragrance news directly from their News Feeds, which helps photo posts like this win big to the tune of a 0.83% engagement rate. The release of three new fragrances sent fans over the moon with excitement, and the post’s mouthwatering descriptions of the new products helped hype up already-excited followers. SDJ’s posts are often bright, colorful, and more than a little tropical to help fans get ready for the beach no matter the season, which helped stir up extra enthusiasm on this post as well.
With such a regular schedule of new product releases, Sol de Janeiro regularly teases new stuff online to keep fans guessing and to engender excitement leading up to the launch. This photo post was light on details but heavy on engagement, earning a 0.65% engagement rate and a 1.73x engagement rate lift over SDJ’s other posts in the time period. Taking the time to create a little hype is a strong strategy for any B2C brand, and SDJ found success with this strategy consistently all year long.
Top Beauty Brands on Social: Twitter
Hold onto your hats, marketers: the median engagement rate (0.0%) AND median tweets per week (0.01) for beauty brands were both basically…0? A big fat goose egg? Nada? Does that mean beauty brands didn’t use Twitter at all this year? In short, no. We use medians because they’re a little more representative of the group as a whole than averages, so this technically means that more than half the beauty brands we studied didn’t tweet and earned next to no engagement on Twitter this year. Beauty brands that did tweet earned a 0.04% engagement rate, so pick the median that correlates best to your Twitter investment this year to compare your beauty brand’s performance to the industry as a whole.
| Rank | Company | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by Follower |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Etude House | 242,398 | 2.90% |
| 2 | Rare Beauty | 206,809 | 1.02% |
| 3 | Huda Beauty | 272,373 | 1.14% |
| 4 | Dove | 51,399 | 0.20% |
| 5 | Fenty Beauty | 176,137 | 0.15% |
| 6 | ColourPop | 538,383 | 0.05% |
| 7 | Sulwhasoo | 40,090 | 29.78% |
| 8 | Topicals | 19,007 | 0.33% |
| 9 | Glossier | 12,243 | 0.29% |
| 10 | SKKN BY KIM | 44,572 | 0.04% |
Twitter has never been a huge focus for beauty brands, and this decreased investment is part of a larger cross-industry trend, with Twitter usage down about 15% worldwide. Engagement rates were just 0.02% last year with brands tweeting less than once per day last year, which was still far below other channels.
Even though Twitter might feel anomalous, there’s still lots of strong beauty strategy happening on this channel. Let’s get into some of the best.
Etude House won the day on Twitter this year but didn’t actually manage a spot in the overall top 10. Rare Beauty and Huda Beauty continued to dominate, with other overall top 10 finishers Fenty Beauty and Glossier hot on their heels. Brands like Dove, ColourPop, Sulwhasoo, Topicals, and SKKN BY KIM finished strong on Twitter, but lagged a bit on other channels.
Featured beauty brand: Etude House
Etude House has been a regular Twitter player in the beauty space for years now, but finally managed to snag the gold this year thanks to consistent posting, strategic collabs, and a light, customer-centric touch. The K-Beauty brand earned 20x the engagement total and 12x the engagement rate of the median beauty brand, which is especially impressive considering they have just a quarter of the followers. Etude House offers a masterclass in unassuming, but customer-focused tweets that other beauty brands should definitely take note of.
This launch of Etude’s Replay Collection earned a 23.6% engagement rate by follower, which is giant by any count. Everyone loves a collab, and partnering with K-Pop faves SHINee on the collection and campaign definitely got fans talking in the replies. The tweet also rocked 4.6K retweets and 180 saves from followers who were excited enough to take serious action to make sure they didn’t miss the release of the limited edition collection.
When a fan tweeted about a very specific detail about Etude’s latest launch, the brand wrote right back to thank her for noticing even the smallest things about Etude’s products. Etude’s heartfelt thanks earned a 28.1% engagement rate by follower and nearly 1.5M estimated impressions, reminding everyone that a little gratitude goes a long way. About 20% of Etude’s tweets this year were replies, which can help brands connect to customers more personally than, say, a viral Instagram Reel ever could.
SHINee wasn’t Etude House’s only super-successful collab campaign this year, with this toner launch in partnership with ballerina Kazuha also earning top engagement rates by follower. The brand describes Kazuha as their latest muse, and was the face of a number of Etude’s product releases all year long. Fans weren’t shy about dropping heart emojis in the replies to show their love for Kazuha, which helped the photo tweet rock a 13.1% engagement rate.
Check out the latest Social Media Industry Benchmark Report for even more benchmarks.
View the report nowHow is My Beauty Brand Performing on Social?
See what the best beauty brands are up to on social with our Live Social Media Benchmarks featuring top posts, engagement rates, high-performing hashtags, and tons more. Pro tip: you can even add these benchmarks directly into your Rival IQ account for always-on monitoring of these top brands.
Or, go head-to-head with a free report on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter to see how you stack up against your top competition. Discover what makes your competitors tick with key insights and actionable advice you can start using now to come out on top.
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Methodology
We surveyed 186 beauty brands between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023 on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. We included a selection of brands from Allure Magazine’s 2023 Best of Beauty Awards and others from our team. Using this data and a weighted formula, we generated an overall engagement ranking for each beauty brand. The top-ranked beauty brands have high engagement rates with average or better audience size and posting volumes. We reviewed a mix of boosted and organic posts.
We define engagement as measurable interaction on social media posts, including likes, comments, favorites, retweets, shares, and reactions. Engagement rate is defined as the total engagement divided by audience size, except on TikTok, where it’s defined as the total engagement divided by views.
Due to Instagram API limitations, we’re able to pull accurate Instagram engagement numbers only for verified and/or Instagram business accounts.
The Case for Benchmarking
Why benchmark instead of just measuring how your brand’s individual performance changes over time? Because social success is relative. Benchmarking means figuring out what’s working (and what isn’t) for brands in your industry and measuring your success against that.
It’s really important to go beyond likes and favorites because audience size matters: 200 likes is great engagement for a beauty brand with 1,000 followers but is a drop in the bucket to a brand with 100,000 followers. Engagement rate helps us take audience size into account to see who’s really reaching the highest percentage of their fans and followers with their social posts, which are the beauty brands you need to beat.
Wrapping it up
Congrats to all of this year’s top beauty brands on social media! It was another year filled with inspiring campaigns, mouthwatering new releases, engaging contests, and so much more.
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