With over 800 million active accounts,¹ Instagram has become the go-to destination for people to connect with their favourite beauty brands, creators and experts like never before. Whether through feed, live or stories, Instagram is changing the way in which emerging beauty trends are shared and experienced. As part of our recent Beauty Beyond events in Los Angeles and New York, we explored how Instagram provides advertisers with the perfect opportunity to engage with this highly active community in more immersive ways.

The visual nature of Instagram allows people to follow and share their passions unlike anywhere else in the world – especially in the beauty community. In fact, beauty Instagrammers are active on the platform every day of the month,³ taking part in 33 sessions a day on average.⁴ The reason for this increasing activity is due to all of the rich content created by our diverse community of brands, creators and experts passionate about this thriving space – particularly through video. As more and more content is shared on Instagram from creators, our beauty community is helping Instagram become a destination for discovery and action.

With its unique focus on connecting the world through immersive video and imagery, Instagram's diverse palette of tools and surfaces work together to create the perfect "look" for advertisers when sharing their story with their community. But how do you know which tool or surface to use? While each creates a unique touchpoint for people to experience – whether it be live, direct or stories – using all of them together is the best way to maximise Instagram's true power and drive business results.

For example, beauty brands on Instagram can use this dynamic content experience to share exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage through live, over-the-top glamour shots in feed or bring its vast selection of products to life in stories – just like popular cosmetic brand Cover FX (@coverfx) did during a recent campaign.

Just like a completed look, by paying attention to all the elements and how they work together, Instagram has become a destination where beauty converges. Whether it's brands showing off their latest products, experts sharing personal tips and advice, or consumers looking to discover more about their passion, beauty brings together some of the best content that Instagram has to offer.

To see how other beauty brands such as Benefit Cosmetics (@benefitcosmetics), L'Oréal Paris Hair (@lorealhair) and Birchbox France (@birchboxfr) use Instagram to create captivating content that drives business results, take a look at their success stories here.