This Is How Nyx Cosmetics Became One Of The Biggest Beauty Brands On Social Media

Any beauty brand today worth its weight in lipstick understands the power of social media. YouTube is becoming the new makeup counter. Instagram "likes" can translate to sales. Hell, even the word "selfie" squeezed its way into the Oxford English Dictionary. No company, however, knows this better than Nyx Professional Makeup.

The drugstore staple has the same unwavering "in" with top beauty vloggers that Martin Scorsese has with Leonardo DiCaprio, and it's all for one reason: Social media has been part of Nyx's bloodline since the beginning of, well, social media. "We were one of the first to embrace it as a platform for makeup to share, create, and express," says Nathalie Kristo, the brand's general manager. "Our success is all from word of mouth — people seeing us in tutorials, then trying it themselves. We've built a big beauty community because of that."

A big community, indeed: With 2.4 million shout-outs on YouTube, Nyx is one of the most-mentioned on the site; on Instagram, that number is multiplied by 10. Ahead, see how Nyx became the beauty brand people couldn't shut up about — and turned that into its (pretty damn smart) business model.