New Mary Kay Social Media Guidelines
Written by Parsons Green
Mary Kay Cosmetics recently announced new social media guidelines for all consultants and directors, and they are making it sound like they are going to be tough.
The full document can be found here, but let’s talk about some of the highlights!
Mary Kay consultants can no longer use the words Mary Kay or the initials MK in any of their social media handles or profile names.
In the past, they were allowed to use MK. I wonder why this change was made? Does corporate want their social media pages to always show up first when someone is looking up the term Mary Kay? As long as the consultant has a link to their Myshop page in their profile, they shouldn’t have any issues right?
Several consultants, directors, and nsds all have social media accounts that now violate this rule. Hopefully with their rebrand, both old and new customers will be able to connect with them on social media. Here are some reactions from the Facebook group about this change.
The company warned consultants not to use AI to generate images of Mary Kay Ash, or any celebrity that can imply the celebrity endorses Mary Kay.
With the recent death of Dolly Parton, several consultants tried very hard to show that there was a connection between Dolly and Mary Kay Ash herself. Here are some examples of that as well.
The company is basically putting the squeeze on consultants and directors to be much more selective in their use of the brand name. That sounds okay if you’re thinking that they want to legally protect the trademarks. But I wonder how it’s going to impact the visibility of the brand. Mary Kay is in dire financial straits and needs people talking about the brand MORE, not less.
And PEASE note!
Mary Kay is also going out of its way to make it seem like they care about false earnings claims, a persistent problem with consultants. But this is a new twist… You can tell people how much you make, just do it in private and not on social media. I guess the company didn’t consider that earnings claims aren’t supposed to be made AT ALL. But they’re trying to be clever. Just make the claim privately so no one has proof that you made it. Then no one gets in trouble!
The company is even offering suggestions on weasel words that consultants can use regarding their financial claims to make it less likely that they’ll get in trouble.
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I thought I read somewhere that Dolly’s niece or nephew had stated they were done with the AI-generated posts and memes, especially from the MLM huns. If this is true, the MK crowd here is in for a rude awakening.
Also, I haven’t found any proof that Dolly was interested in buying the rights to MKA’s life story. I wonder if this is an urban legend, like MK’s marketing plan being taught at Harvard.
What is out there are Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram anecdotes published by MK Huns about Dolly’s interest in buying the rights to MKA’s life story. Nothing factual exists about this supposed project, and Dolly’s side has said nothing about this.
I’m glad this made it to the front page. Every turn of the screw limits the IBCs’ ability to work “their” “businesses.” I have no doubt that they’re fixing to eliminate the “sales” force and have sales online through My Shop only.
“You know what, all these new rules are just confusing everyone, so we’ll do you a BIG FAVOR 🩷. Instead of having to maintain a personal FB page, just use your My Shop site and let us take care of all that tedious stuff for you. That will free up time to work your business. Oh, BTW, here’s a bunch more new rules regarding recruitment and inventory…”
Dolly Parton was never afraid to be herself. She was a successful businesswoman who built her empire through talent, integrity, intelligence, and hard work. She was married to the same man for decades, and it was a marriage of mutual love and respect. She used her money to help people and cared about everyone. She loved children. She might be one of the very few celebrities with no haters. She was a great big beaming smile of a woman.
Mary Kay Ash was successful insofar as she made herself lots of money. She was a carefully curated persona rather than a person. She lied about her upbringing, resented her children, passing them off on family and boarding school as soon as she could, and had more husbands than my extended family. She only cared about others like her, who were willing to lie and scheme in order to get ahead. Her smile is even fake, in order not to get wrinkles, and it never reaches her eyes.
I think if Dolly had ever looked at the real Mary Kay, she’d have noped out in a hot second.
And she looked damn good in tight, sparkly PANTS. So there.
I suspect that the reason Corporate set up new rules about the use of the company’s name, initials, and branding is that they plan to do something different with the branding soon and want to avoid dilution (pollution?) by unprofessional and untrained “sales representatives). Bring the control back in house, if possible.
100%
Build yourself as the brand, you can put the link in the bio. Like an AFFILIATE. If you owned your own business you could advertise however you wanted to!
Velen Rameno: “…it’s just a complete 360 from what they initially wanted us to to.”
So nothing’s changed? You went in a complete circle? 180 hun. 180 is a total reversal. Never rely on these people to navigate or do math.
It is interesting to me that corporate says this is allowed:
Share that there is up to a 50% profit potential on everything you sell at suggested retail price as an active* Independent Beauty Consultant.
Because they know it is impossible to make 50% profit. No matter what, there are always SOME business expenses that reduce what the consultant makes. So even if she sells at full retail price, there will never be PROFIT of 50%.
Weasel wording:
— “Up to”
— “Potential”
In the 90’s you could definitely order 30 pearl lip glosses. They didn’t overnight things and someone in SoCal could go to Costa Mesa and get them. Every Director was at the Costa Mesa distribution center on the last day of the month.