Sofia Poursanidou, CEO and Marketing Director of Beauty Loop, joined the round table along with Linkfluence.

Linkfluence is a social media intelligence company headquartered in Paris ,to discuss how brands can listen to their customers and detect trends through social networks and contents constantly circulating the web.

The roundtable resulted in the following conclusions and forward looking recommendations:

Social media monitoring is an essential first step in a brand's successful move to digital.

Companies need to understand their online environment before making key structural decisions, by asking...

"What is our online brand image?"

"What are connected consumers saying about our products?"

"What are their needs and areas of interest?"

Social data helps companies with their brand and reputation management as well as measuring marketing performance. It also benefits customer relations and product management, in addition to boosting the understanding of targets and helping to reveal strategic insights.

Social media data is the global, real-time resource that can fuel a targeted content strategy focused on the real needs of consumers.

Sending the right message to the right audience

When monitoring online conversation about a widely distributed beauty cream in Europe, Social Media Researchers discovered that the majority of consumers discussing the cream had olive or darker skin.

This particular audience hadn't been largely considered in the brand communication - only lighter-skinned models were used to promote the product.

Using social media data, content was developed to tackle the skin requirements of these customers.

Developing brand utility

Speakers analysed online discussion about face care for a cosmetics company. They revealed two major consumer insights: internet users showed a pronounced interest in Aloe Vera, debating the ways of benefiting from its advantages. They were also frequently discussing the TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) research project, which aims to test the effects of metformin on the elderly.

The result: the brand is now offering practical content relating to Aloe Vera, explaining its effects and how to benefit from them. The brand has also launched an academic study of aging and is relaying its progress on a dedicated platform.

Implementing affinity marketing

Working with a major DIY brand, Social Media Researchers analysed the web communities that the brand could seek to address. They learned that there was a very strong interest shown by e-mums, one of the web's most dynamic communities for all DIY activities, in particular low-cost furniture customisation.

They also detected a strong desire among fans of decoration and design to create their own objects, with many people querying the best practice.

The result: the publication of dedicated guides that followed each community's conventions as well as responding to the various questions that had been posed.

Social media data is no longer only about social media management or social media marketing. It is a new window into consumers that are no longer defined by their socio-demographic category but by the preferences they express online.

It is a means of building a new type of relationship by talking to consumers about what interests them rather than communicating standard commercial messages.

In short, social media monitoring makes brands sociable!

At the heart of the issues raised by “digital mania” was the Personal data regulations.

European Parliament has recently adopted a new regulation to stimulate and regulate the digital single market, which will take effect in a few weeks, by significantly toughening penalties.

These new technologies that feed in particular on big data do indeed open up broad opportunities for brand retailers, but they also generate new legal risks.

Indeed at its plenary session in Strasbourg on 14 April, 2016, the European Parliament voted the final adoption of the new Regulation on the protection of personal data.

This much awaited (4 years!) historic text sets the new legal framework, to which all companies, across all sectors, will have to comply by 2018, with penalties in case of infringement of up to 4% of their turnover.

This reform provides an opportunity for all companies to accelerate or perfect their digital transformation, by adapting their organization and the use they make of data collected, to secure and enhance their “Data asset” in light of this new regulation.

It has to be said, all the ingredients necessary were assembled to make this big professional make-up celebration a success!

Somehow I must conjure up words to convey the energy, passion and emotion that coursed through the attendees over two days in Paris.

People all sharing the same vision, the same purpose and the same passion. Over two days we heard speeches that inspired, took part in workshops that expanded our minds and forged relationships that will last a life time.

Thank you Makeup in Paris very much for organizing this amazing event and I look forward to seeing you next year !