15 key stats from AI study on sustainability on beauty social media accounts

EYECUE Insights recently released its report “The Sustainability Sustainability Handbook: Top Performing Strategies for Brands,” which used AI technology to analyze 160,000 posts across 130 social media accounts, according to a press release.

The report covers how those brands address sustainability on social media and how consumers engage with those posts.

“Given the nature of the beauty industry, the amount of waste it generates and the size of its audience, brands … carry an obligation to not only ensure they are taking measures to be more sustainable, but also to educate consumers on their sustainability efforts,” said EYECUE Insights Founder Carolina Bañales in the release.

Here are 15 of the key stats from the report:

1. Across all accounts, only 5% of social media posts talked about sustainability. Brands were more likely to talk about product benefits, type and ingredients.
2. Brands overall included mentions of sustainability in social media posts significantly more often in the month of Earth Day than in the preceding and following month. In 2022 posts about sustainability doubled from March to April.
3. Four of the five most common topics of sustainability social media posts pertaining to packaging, including refillable, recyclable, recycled and reusable.                 
4. Between the first quarter of 2020 and 2022, accounts increased posts on recycled, refillable, recyclable and reusable. They decreased posts on recycling, sustainability, waste, zero-waste, pollutant and green beauty.
5. Of the 130 brands analyzed, 21 were identified as “successful sustainability adopters” based on engagement and high share counts. More than half of those brands are sustainability-led and three-fourths are independently owned.
6. Among the top sustainability adopters, 6-30% of social media posts were about sustainability issues.
7. For the top 10 brands, sustainability-related posts garnered up to 60% more engagement than other posts.
8. Since 2021, sustainability-led brands increased the percentage of loyal audiences they share with brands in other categories. The greatest increase was with niche brands and the largest audience shared was with science-led brands.
9. Between 2021 and 2022 loyal audiences increasingly migrated from other brand categories to sustainability-led brands. All other categories lost at least 15% of loyal audiences to sustainability-led brands, with the most significant loss at 20% for science-led brands.
10. The report outlines four social media strategies for sustainability topics: talk about sustainability more frequently, inform and educate consumers, use the right content format, amplify endorsements from celebrities. Of the top performing brands, 71% used three or more of those strategies.
11. Successful sustainability integrators mention two or more sustainability topics 44% of the time, while the average among all accounts is mentioning two or more sustainability topics 28% of the time.
12. Successful sustainability integrators use image carousels 44% more often than the average with 11% higher engagement.
13. Successful sustainability integrators use reels 23% more often than the average with 17% higher engagement.
14. Successful sustainability integrators use 11% more portraits in image social media posts.
15. Successful sustainability integrators use 41% more infographic-style text posts.