For a long time, beauty brands built their influence on well-defined pillars: a celebrity spokesperson, scientific expertise, or the heritage of a prestigious company. But according to Lefty Insights' Beauty Intelligence Report 2026, published this week, another factor is gaining increasing importance: the ability to build engaged communities that naturally extend the conversation around the products.

This evolution is occurring within a market that continues to grow, albeit at a more moderate pace. By 2025, the 500 brands analyzed by Lefty will generate $33.4 billion in Earned Media Value (EMV), the metric that measures the media value generated by content published on social networks, representing a 5% year-over-year increase, while the market as a whole has grown by 55% since 2023. At the same time, the number of creators publishing beauty content has jumped by 76% in three years, and the volume of posts by 68%. Yet, average visibility per post has declined by 8%, indicating that simply producing more content is no longer enough to stand out.