September 13, 2018

How Social Media Enabled Kylie Jenner to Become the Youngest Self-Made Billionaire

With over 110 million Instagram followers, Kylie Jenner utilizes her social media platforms to promote her cosmetics line, Kylie Cosmetics. It all started with her lip kits. According to her recent article with Forbes, the idea came sitting at the dinner table of her mother’s home in Calabasas, California.

Success of Kylie Cosmetics

The cosmetics line launched two years ago, which has sold more than $630 million worth of products. The 21-year-old owns 100% of the company and operates with a team of seven full-time and five part-time employees. She invested $250,000 into producing 15,000 lip kits for her first launch. Within seconds, the lip kits had sold out. She expanded her cosmetics line by adding more products like eyeshadow and concealer which has added up to $800 million.

“Add to that the millions she’s earned from TV programs and endorsing products like Puma shoes and PacSun clothing, and $60 million in estimated after-tax dividends she’s taken from her company, and she’s conservatively worth $900 million.” Forbes writes. This makes her America’s youngest richest self-made woman at the age of 20 (she just turned 21) and is now on the run to take the title as America’s youngest richest self-made billionaire ever, a title that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held at age 23.

The Power of Social Media

Jenner tells Forbes, “Social media is an amazing platform… I have such easy access to my fans and my customers.”

With her millions of followers on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, Kylie Jenner’s marketing strategy utilizes every social media platform to create content on a daily basis to showcase her cosmetics line. Jenner leverages her social media following to make all that money. She pouts for selfies with captions about her cosmetics line and what products she is wearing. The makeup line has its own Instagram page, with just over 17 million followers that were leveraged from Jenner’s personal account. And with Instagram’s new shoppable feature, it is even easier for customers to purchase products from the app.

Forbes receives criticism for calling Jenner “self-made”

Forbes quickly received backlash on the article for claiming Jenner to be “self-made,” given the wealth and fame of the family she was born to.

“Self-made means having succeeded in life unaided,” tweeted the dictionary.com account from Twitter. Forbes acknowledges Jenner’s fame in the article, “when you are leveraging your name, you can turn it into anything you want to sell.” And that’s exactly what Jenner did.  The youngest member of the Kardashian family dynasty utilized social media for her business to market and promote her products and is now set to become the richest self-made billionaire by 2019.

As social media continues to evolve, the use of these social platforms will continue to increase. Creating a successful social media strategy without much knowledge in the digital media industry could hurt your business. GreatLike Media is an Orange County digital marketing agency that specializes in the digital media and advertising industry. Contact us today to get in touch with one of our digital marketing professionals to receive the perfect digital marketing expertise for your business.

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