Cosmetics company Lush has announced that it will drastically change its social media strategy, beginning with the close of its UK accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The company’s UK arm, Lush UK has 569,000 followers on Instagram, 423,143 on Facebook over 200,000 on Twitter.
The company also operates branded pages including Lush Kitchen, Lush Times, Lush Life, Soapbox and Gorilla which will also close.
The company suggested that online advertising on the platform had become prohibitively expensive, saying in a statement: “We are tired of fighting with algorithms, and we do not want to pay to appear in your newsfeed.”
It said that it did not want to limit the brand to holding conversations in one place, and instead wanted to place social “back in the hands of our communities – from our founders to our friends.”
The company hinted at its new strategy, which will focus instead on Lush ‘personalities,’ though the company made clear that these new personalities will not be a replacement for the branded accounts.
This isn’t the end, it’s just the start of something new.#LushCommunity – see you there.
— LUSH UK (@LushLtd) April 8, 2019
Instead it would be a chance for customer “to connect one-on-one with people within Lush based on the various categories.”
The branded channels, which have played a role in providing customer service as well as marketing will be phased out over the coming week.
In a tweet, the company said that its @LushLtd account would remain active for a week in responding to messages and comments, and would then redirect customers to its ‘live chat’, email or telephone services.
Lush could not confirm to BusinessCloud if the move will be permanent.