Sephora, part of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) group, has built a community hub on its website called BeautyTalk that aims to move conversation from third party networks back to its own website.

The brand is encouraging people to talk about products in this way – in conjunction with other social media sites – as it wants to be able to use the data and insight from its audience.

Bridget Dolan, SVP interactive media of Sephora, said, “Sephora customers are extremely passionate and very social. We have more than 865,000 Facebook fans and 95,000 Twitter followers and wanted to deepen our engagement with our audience. We created BeautyTalk to capture the conversation around Beauty as well as all the content and insights that go with it.”

With the help of Lithium Technologies, the company has created a platform for users to post beauty questions that Sephora’s experts and other community members can answer. The company will also use the platform to ask its community questions to help develop the website and improve its product range.

Lithium argues that brands who have invested and experimented with Facebook and Twitter should now be looking beyond the social networks and looking to integrate the discussions into their own sites.

Lyle Fong, CEO and co-founder of Lithium Technologies, said, “Facebook and Twitter have the critical mass that appeals to marketers as the key place to connect with prospects. The reality is that this reach is only one part of the equation. Innovative companies like Sephora are looking to take this engagement deeper so they can measure their marketing effectiveness beyond just fans and followers and create a sophisticated corps of advocates.”

This strategy will be beneficial in the long term as it will help with the likes of SEO, product innovation and development. This is, as Lithium says, particularly appropriate for those who are already used to managing their reputation across social media and have the resources to do so already in-house.

Tags: bridget dolan, community, lithium technologies, LVMH, lyle fong, sephora, social media