Lime Crime: Social Media Monitoring Project

Lime Crime. Right of the bat, the brand swings at you with a bold name.

They’re a brand that immediately presents itself as one for the bold, young, makeup world. Their lipstick colors range from classic reds to blue, purple, and virtually every color in between. Their symbol? A unicorn. Everything about their online presence seeks to show you that they are cool, hip, and meant for the unique extroverts of the world. However, when you begin to truly look into their history, it seems that the brand does not always practice what it preaches. In fact, they often actively act against themselves, and the diverse voices that many young people are currently seeking from the companies they purchase from.

Most of the scandals are entirely by the hands of the company's CEO and founder, Doe Deere. It began with Doe repackaging another company’s mica at a higher price. This led to the creation of some negative blogs around Lime Crime…. Which led to Doe attempting to sue blogs for slander. This, of course, was not the best course of action. The beauty industry groundswell was not happy with her, and ever since Doe and “beauty gurus” have rarely gotten along. This was not helped when Lime Crime’s security network went down, and many shoppers got their credit card information stolen. Oh, and they once ran a campaign for a "China Doll" makeup palette with a white model.

If you're interested in hearing even more, check out Drew Disaster's video:

Even with these scandals, Lime Crime has somehow pursued. While many who are within the fashion world now refuse to buy from them, they still have strong popularity. It seems that this continued success comes down to two things

1. Most people likely don’t know about their previous shady actions.
2. Their products are often innovative and hard to find “dupes” (A makeup product similar to another brand's, but generally cheaper or more ethically made) of anywhere else.  

Their most recent creation is a product named “Diamond Crushers”. These Diamond Crushers are a glittery topper to any lipstick you are already wearing. The idea is that they do not smudge your lipstick, and do not wear off when something touches your lips. These two aspects are valuable in the makeup industry, and it seems there are virtually no other makeup brands currently with quite the same product.

So, I decided study Lime Crime’s social media to see how they use each site to promote themselves or block controversy, and see how the launch of its innovative new product has led to its most recent success.

Their social media presence goes as follows as of February 27th:

• 5 Facebook Posts on that day. 1,069,344 Likes
• 7 Twitter posts (including re tweets) on that day. 67,500 Followers
• 7 Instagram posts on that day,. 2,800,000 Followers- Notably the posts from the day before showed up on FB and Twitter on this day.
• It is also important to note that although they do not have a channel on YouTube, they often pay famous "Beauty Gurus" to sponsor products by giving it to them for free, or paying them. This is a norm within the beauty industry.

Lower level Instagram star is re-posted on Lime Crime

It is easy to see that Instagram is Lime Crime's most successful social media account. This comes as no surprise, as Instagram's whole premise is around simple pictures and short videos. It's a site that leaves little opportunity for controversy. While captions and comments are an aspect, they are not the focal point, and often go unread by the user. This makes it the perfect place for Lime Crime to thrive, because it doesn't leave people asking questions. Where Instagram engages with the groundswell most successfully is through Instagram as well. They allow users to be part of their advertising by sharing fan's post, often as part of "fan Friday". This can engage users who hope to be featured to post more on their own pages, and thereby increase Lime Crime's word of mouth as well. (I myself first discovered this brand from a user I followed on Instagram).

Through all of their social media sites though, they did do a good job responding to groundswell. They do a good job responding to questions on Facebook and Instagram. On Twitter it is far easier to find out what comments were made on other people's page, and I noticed that multiple times a day they would post supportive comments on other women's posts in Lime Crime makeup, which is a fantastic move for the groundswell. However, we can see from Facebook's analytics that Lime Crime's Facebook followers are very uneven.

Facebook Analytics 2/28

The only other place that we really see this groundswell is through Twitter, where they also re-post pictures, although they are often the same ones they re-post from Instagram. Twitter is an interesting source for Lime Crime. Since you are limited in how much you say, there is more diversity in people's ability to interact with the company. However, twitter gives great insight into the teetering line that Lime Crime plays between new innovative products, and "haters" (as Doe Deere would refer to them as). Here is a perfect example from posts Lime Crime has been tagged in:

Four comments about Diamond Crushers, and one about Lime Crime being "trash"

This brings us back to Diamond Crushers. Diamond Crushers and products like it really do seem to be what is keeping the company afloat. In the past week, it is definitely what was fueling their social media support, shown through Social Mention:

Wednesday, February 22nd

Sunday, February 26th

Friday, February 24th

 Diamond Crusher's influence on brand conversations is notable immediately, as "diamond" and "crushers" are the 3rd and 4th key words (when doing the search I only put in the brand name, so that result came up naturally). The controversy that still looms over Lime Crime seems apparent, with the highest negativity rating being 3 positive comments to every one negative on Friday.

We can also see Diamond Crusher's Influence through Google Trends. The first mention of Diamond Crushers on Lime Crime's Instagram was November 1st. This was a perfect ramp up for the holiday months. As you can see, they had hit a bit of a lull until right as Diamond Crushers began to come out (official sell date November 15th)

As you can see here, the graph becomes skewed when November 24th is included. This is when Lime Crime had a large sale for Black Friday. However, I think that it was a strategic move on their part to get visitors to their site just days after a brand new product was dropped.

Overall, Lime Crime is a brand with a lot of problems. However, their strong social media presence, ability to interact with the groundswell, and innovative products seem to keep them afloat. I believe the best way for Lime Crime is to strengthen their brand is to distance or remove their founder, but that is hardly likely. Hopefully, if they own up to future mistakes in a timely manner, and take more time to consider their actions, their reputation will continue to build in a positive direction.