Beauty Industry Social Media Benchmark Report
Find out how your brand stacks up against beauty industry leaders.
Download the full beauty industry benchmarks to see the latest averages and key metrics across beauty categories, including skincare, haircare, fragrance, luxury, and cosmetics. Use these findings to set clear goals, sharpen creative, and discover where you’re winning or have opportunities to grow.
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Key Takeaways: 2026 Beauty Industry Benchmark Report
- Reach outpaces engagement on TikTok. Views are up 23%, while engagement dropped from 3.6% to 2.8% and retention sits at 23%.
- Instagram expands discovery. Views are up 26% and engagement dipped from 2.9% to 2.1%.
- YouTube attracts high-intent viewing. Views rose 128%, with average watch time at 102%, pointing to repeat viewing.
Beauty Industry Benchmarks and Statistics
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What Top Beauty Brands Are Doing Differently
In 2026, the top beauty brands are collaborating with creators, brands, and sharing UGC that entertains and educates. These brands lean into trends and humor to capture attention, layering in education to drive views across channels.
Charlotte Tilbury drives strong social impact with a glamorous, consistent brand voice, founder-led tutorials, high-reach partnerships like the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and trend-led humor that keep content relevant.
From celebrity interviews on the red carpet to sharing behind-the-scenes moments with its namesake founder, Killian maintains a distinct visual identity. Insights help the brand refine that formula and invest in high-performing formats like hi-fi, glossy visuals.
Belif’s most entertaining content works because it leads with format, not product. By tapping into playful TikTok trends, the brand earns attention first, then folds the product into the moment.
How Have Beauty Benchmarks Changed Since Our Last Report?
From Aesthetic-First To Audience-First
In our last report, top-performing TikTok brands saw engagement rates between 7-9%, with a 3.9% industry average.
Today, the average beauty industry engagement rate sits at 2.8%, with fewer beauty verticals landing in this range.
What changed: Attention is harder to earn. Standing out requires sharper creative.
From Siloed Performance To Cross-Channel Consistency
Previously, performance was fragmented across channels, making it challenging to measure the overall impact of social media strategies.
Now, brands are using Total Social Impact (TSI) to measure holistic performance, using the metric to identify which channels and formats are successful and where there are opportunities to grow.
What changed: Social media channels are increasingly interconnected in how they influence performance and brand perception, and require a unified metric to identify where momentum is building and where to invest next.
From Broad Beauty Benchmarks To Niche Verticals
2025’s report saw data aggregated across the entire beauty industry for a broad look at overall performance.
In this report, we’re going a step deeper to look at individual categories within the beauty industry, including fragrance, skincare, haircare, and cosmetics, so brands can compare performance against their closest competitors.
What changed: Breaking down performance by category gives teams a more accurate metric to define success.
What’s a Good Engagement Rate for Beauty Brands?
Beauty brands should aim for an engagement rate between 2.0% and 3.0% on TikTok, and 2.0-2.5% on Instagram.
What Types of Content Perform Best for Beauty Industry Brands?
For beauty brands, short-form video across platforms is driving discovery. On Instagram, Reels drive reach, making them the best lever to increase awareness. On YouTube, short and long-form content see 128% more video views compared to our previous benchmark report, making YouTube valuable for longer stories, tutorials, and extending the life of short-form content.
How Our Beauty Industry Benchmarks Are Calculated
Dash Social pulled a sample of global companies across TikTok (n=1,361), Instagram (n=3,363), and YouTube (n=616) analyzing their activity between July 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025 to determine average performance against a predetermined set of KPIs. These benchmarks include organic, boosted and promoted content but exclude paid ads. They apply to handles with at least 1K followers, covering both customers and non-customers.
Download the Full Beauty Industry Benchmark Report
Dash Social’s benchmark report takes you through the latest metrics behind discovery, viewership, and how leading brands stand out on social.
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Social Media Benchmark FAQs
What posting frequency correlates with top performance for beauty accounts on each channel?
The top-performing beauty brands see eight average weekly posts on TikTok and five on Instagram.
How does beauty’s average engagement rate on each platform compare to the cross-industry average?
Beauty slightly trails the cross-industry average on TikTok, down 0.6 points by views (2.8% vs. 3.4%) and 0.3 points by reach (4.1% vs. 4.4%). On Instagram, engagement is lower overall, dropping to 0.2% among followers and 2.1% among views, indicating a wider gap in how audiences interact with content.
What KPIs should beauty brands track in 2026?
In 2026, brands should track the Entertainment Score to go beyond reach and measure how well their content entertains and engages users.