As part of our Beauty Series of Interviews, launched during Social Media Week NY (February 2010), we interviewed Ron Robinson, industry veteran and founder of BeautyStat – a highly targeted expert driven community that connects women around beauty. He shared with us his inspiration to start his community, how he came up with his tagline "Beauty of Facts not Fiction", how brands can listen to consumer conversations and involve them on their product development process. He also touched on trends for the future, the power of social media, the role of the beauty blogging community and BeautyStat VIP Blogger program and much more. Check out the video on YouTube: Part 1 and Part 2. Enjoy!

Beauty Stat, an online beauty community destination, introduced this week the “first-of-its-kind”  Facebook application. The brainchild of industry veteran and visionary Ron Robinson, Beauty Stat is an innovative, non-biased, highly targeted expert driven community that connects women around beauty. Facebook provides them with a familiar environment to share, discuss, and engage in conversations about skin, make up, haircare, etc. The great insight for brands is the introduction of the concept of social product development. Beauty Stat offers a targeted forum for beauty companies to listen to customers talking about their brands and the opportunity to engage the network to output better, co-created products. Let’s hope companies get out of their comfort zone and try it out. I am already a fan (become a fan).

1. Did you first launch a regular website then moved to a facebook app? I remember back in January/Feb signing up to Beautystat.com. Yes, I moved to a Facebook app because I saw a huge opportunity given Facebook’s tremendous growth.

2. Why did you decide to make the change? Was it a planned evolution? Yes, this was a planned evolution.  Facebook has nearly 350 million members worldwide.  More than half of those members are women. Facebook is an amazing platform that allows people to connect and share information with each other.  My vision for Beauty Stat is to allow women to connect and share information about beauty.  Facebook was a natural fit given our shared vision.

3. As the first app of its kind, how do you see Beauty Stat changing the face of beauty/cosmetics industry? Beauty Stat will have an effect on both consumers and brands. Consumers are overwhelmed and confused given the number of beauty products out on the market today. And they are skeptical about some of the strong claims being made as well.  Consumers are turning to each other for recommendations and testimonials before making a product purchase. Beauty Stat facilitates that communication on a much bigger scale. Brands are taking notice of this change in consumers and Beauty Stat allows companies to "listen" in on these conversations among consumers as well as expose their products in a zero bias environment.

4. How did you build your network of experts? How do they contribute? We look for experts who are willing to help educate our members. Those that are willing to give objective, expert advice.  Zero bias and no hard sell are part of the core values of Beauty Stat. We have a few more big name beauty experts that will be joining our roster soon as well.

5. Who helped you design the app? We created a partnership with a company called DotBox. They are a digital agency and marketing firm whose clients include Harry Winston, Henri Bendel and Cole Haan.

6. What are the main ways people can participate/be part of the community? Aside from exchanging advice with other members, the feature that members are really excited about is the ability to connect with one of our beauty experts. Members can email them questions directly as well as have live chats with our beauty experts. Soon we will be offering this service through live video streams as well.  

7. What is your business model? We provide beauty manufacturers with the ability to test new product concepts and advertising with consumers of different demographics and shopping habits.  We give consumers the ability to have a say in the new products that will be coming out and brands can use their feedback to make better products.

8. How can brands be part of Beauty Stat? Will they send you products for review? Brands can also sponsor product giveaways.  My expert beauty team reviews these products first and then we send them to our members to get their feedback.

9. You already got a nice following (in how many days did you get to over 500 fans)? We are really excited about the response since we just launched this week. 

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