YouTube Beauty Gurus and New Media Marketing

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I've long considered YouTube to be the bargain basement of the social web - a repository for funny kitten videos, egregious spelling errors and hilariously profane insults. Recently, however, I've found myself nervously hovering around the edges of a kind of underground sub-culture found only on the YouTubes - the beauty tutorial culture.
 
Women of all ages are "how to" vlogging (curse that word!) the art of makeup and hair. Some seem to be doing it for fun or as a kind of therapy, others appear to be sponsored (Pursebuzz is linked to BeautyChoice.com) and still others are hawking products in a brave new marketing strategy. (Image Via.)

Jenn Mapp, the brand manager for Cibu International "Ancient Secrets for Modern Hair", posts a Do A Day on her YouTube Channel and yep, you guessed it, she's a Guru. Jenn is open, knowledgeable, and genuine and never makes you feel dirty the way infomercials do. She promotes her products yes, but she does it while showing how to use them in the midst of her normal morning routine - complete with exploding blow dryers and three day old unwashed hair. She's a normal person. A normal person doing business using new media in an honest, practical, engaging manner.

This is total radical transparency in action and an intriguing shift in the way businesses should probably be thinking about online advertising.

The New York Times might want to take a few notes. I'm just saying.

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