Mohammed Lamine Ahmed Chichi
Marketing · Strategy · Social
Building a Beauty Brand on Instagram
Paid + Organic Strategy Delivering 384K Reach in 30 Days
Eyeliner Stamp 🤍🪽 · Family business · Algeria · March 2026 → ongoing
CLIENT Eyeliner Stamp 🤍🪽 (@eyeliner_stamp_) — beauty / cosmetics brand
SECTOR Beauty / makeup tools — eyeliner stamps for perfect winged eyeliner
LOCATION Algeria · ships France 🇫🇷 + 🇩🇿 worldwide
MY ROLE Instagram Marketing Lead — full stack (organic + Meta Ads)
DURATION March 2026 → ongoing
790K
TOTAL VIEWS
+6,867%
ACCOUNT REACHED
73.5%
REACH FROM REALS
1,321
FOLLOWERS
1. The Brief
Eyeliner Stamp 🤍🪽 is my sister's beauty brand based in Algeria, shipping worldwide. She designs and sells an eyeliner stamp tool — a small applicator that produces a perfect winged eyeliner ("cat eye") in one press, without the practice or steady hand a traditional liquid liner needs. The brand's identity is soft, feminine and aspirational — the wing-emoji name (🪽) is the visual hook, and the product itself is the perfect Reels demo: hold up the stamp, press, reveal a flawless wing in two seconds. The bio lists France 🇫🇷 and Algeria 🇩🇿 as primary markets with worldwide shipping via the site at eyelinerstamp.us. When I took over the Instagram in March 2026 the account was small, posting was inconsistent, and there was no advertising spend behind it. My sister wanted to use Instagram as the main commercial channel for the brand — both to build a recognisable beauty page and to convert traffic into DM orders via the link in bio.
How the work started
She was very excited about what I would do differently, and she encouraged me to try something new.
Why Instagram specifically — not TikTok or Facebook
Three reasons aligned to Eyeliner Stamp's product and audience:
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The product is a perfect Reels demo. Eyeliner stamps are visually self-explanatory — before-and-after in 3 seconds. Reels rewards exactly this kind of "watch-the-magic-happen" content. (Real data backs this: 73.5% of all reach in the measurement period came from Reels.)
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Beauty buyers live on Instagram. Women aged 18–35 — the eyeliner-stamp audience — make beauty discoveries on Instagram, not Facebook. They follow beauty brands, save looks, and DM to buy.
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DM-to-order is the conversion path. Algeria's e-commerce infrastructure for small beauty brands often runs through Instagram DM and link-in-bio, not exclusively through a hosted website.
This is platform-fit-by-design: Facebook would have reached an older audience for a different kind of product (which is exactly why Groupe-chichi sits on Facebook); TikTok's algorithm rewards trend-following over brand consistency, which doesn't fit a beauty brand building long-term identity with cross-border shipping.
Objectives I set
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Build a consistent Reels output showcasing the product in use
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Establish a recognisable visual feed grid (soft palette, branded Reel covers, type system)
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Layer paid amplification on top of organic content to extend reach into the buying audience faster than organic-only would allow
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Drive measurable DM enquiries and link-in-bio clicks for orders
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Use Insights weekly to identify what was working and reallocate both content effort and ad budget toward it
2. My Approach — Paid + Organic Blended Strategy
Modern Instagram for a small beauty brand isn't a pure-organic game. The brutal honest truth is that organic Reels reach has narrowed every year as the platform pushes content brands toward paid amplification. So I ran a deliberately blended strategy: high-quality organic Reels at the centre, with Meta Ads layered on top to push the best-performing organic creative to a wider buying audience.
Organic layer — the creative foundation
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Reels (primary lever, ~73.5% of all reach) — short product demos and before/after wing applications. Produced on phone using CapCut.
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Stories (~21.7% of reach) — daily lightweight Stories with polls, behind-the-scenes packing footage, customer wear reposts.
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Feed posts (~4.8% of reach) — branded carousels for product launches, customer reposts, and educational beauty content.
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Profile optimisation — bio, link-in-bio to eyelinerstamp.us, branded Stories Highlights.
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DM funnel — every Reel ends with a CTA to DM or tap the link in bio. Saved replies for common questions (shipping, price, availability).
Paid layer — Meta Ads on top of the organic creative
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Boosted top-performing organic Reels rather than producing dedicated ad creative — the algorithm has already told us what's working organically, so I amplified that.
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Audience targeting — geo-fenced primarily to France and Algeria, interest-targeted around beauty / cosmetics / makeup hacks, age-banded around 18–35.
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Budget pacing — small-budget tests on multiple creatives, then concentration on the winners. The 95% paid share of views shows the strategy was paid-heavy by design, not by accident.
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Insights as the feedback loop — weekly review of which Reels were earning the lowest cost-per-view and highest engagement-per-spend, then reallocating budget toward those creatives.
Content pillars used
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Product demo Reels — show the stamp working in real time, wow moment in the first 2 seconds
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Before / after wings — split-screen or wipe transition
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Customer reposts — real buyers wearing the look (social proof)
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Educational beauty content — eyeliner tips not directly product-pitched (builds trust + saves)
The test-measure-iterate loop
Each week:
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Planned a content calendar of Reels + feed + Stories
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Produced content on phone (CapCut for Reels, Canva for feed templates and Reel covers)
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Posted at audience-active times informed by previous Insights
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Measured every Reel against the Insights signals — reach, plays, watch time, saves, profile visits, follow conversion, and cost-per-result on the paid side
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Iterated the next week's content calendar AND the next week's ad budget allocation based on what worked
3. The Work
Top-performing Reels
Insights → "Par contenu populaire" panel — top Reels by views, last 30 days. Top performer: ~62K-view application demo Reel.
Top Reel — side-profile application demo · ~62K views
A side-profile application Reel with a "1 côté droit" on-screen overlay — viewer watches the eyeliner stamp being pressed against the outer corner of the right eye.
Why this worked: a clear product-in-use demo — the visual outcome (a sharp wing in seconds) is the entire hook. Strong organic creative + paid amplification compounded.
Second Reel — front-facing application demo · ~2.3K views
A front-facing close-up application demo — viewer sees the press-and-release motion from eye level.
Why this worked: head-on framing inverts the angle of the top Reel and tests whether the audience preferred a first-person POV-style view — useful as a creative variant against the side-profile leader.
Third Reel — finished-wing outcome shot · ~1.5K views
A tight macro shot of the finished winged eyeliner result — outcome / proof-of-result framing rather than a technique demo.
Why this worked: serves the social-proof job rather than the demo job — it tells viewers what they'll get, not how the tool works. Smaller reach but valuable as the "result" half of a demo + outcome content pairing.
Pinned grid posts (user-curated, not necessarily top by views): 482 views, 10.8K views, 517 views — the 10.8K-view pinned Reel is the second-highest-viewed pinned post.
Hashtag strategy
Based on the brand's own bio (#Eyelinerstamp #wingeyelinerstamp) and audience reach:
SET | EXAMPLES | PURPOSE |
|---|---|---|
Broad beauty | #makeup #beauty #beautytips #makeuptutorial | Reach into general beauty audience |
Niche product | #eyelinerstamp #wingedeyeliner #cateye #eyelinerhack | Reach buyers actively searching for the product type |
Brand-owned | #Eyelinerstamp #wingeyelinerstamp | Build brand discoverability — confirmed in the public bio |
Stories cadence
Daily Stories cycle: morning product Story → midday poll or question (e.g. "Which wing — sharp or soft?") → evening behind-the-scenes (packaging orders) → weekend customer reposts. Polls drove the most profile visits — Instagram boosts content that prompts interaction.
4. Results
Instagram Insights — last 30 days, captured 24 May 2026. Headline: 790,635 total views, 95% from paid amplification, 384,572 accounts reached (+6,866.9% vs prior period).
Public profile + Tableau de bord professionnel banner (790.6K vues / 30 derniers jours) + pinned Reels grid (482, 10.8K, 517 views).
Headline numbers (last 30 days)
METRIC | VALUE | NOTE |
|---|---|---|
Top Reel views | ~62,000 | Single top-performer (application demo) |
Followers (current) | 1,321 | 39 publications · 160 following |
Views from non-followers | 98.2% | Strong audience-expansion signal |
Views from followers | 1.8% | Discovery-led account |
Accounts reached | 384,572 | +6,866.9% vs prior 30-day period |
Organic | ~5.0% | ~39,500 organic views — the foundation that paid amplifies |
Paid (publicités) | 95.0% | Strategy is paid-amplification-led by design (~750K of the 790K views) |
Total views | 790,635 | Reels + feed + Stories combined |
Content type breakdown (by share of reach)
CONTENT TYPE | SHARE OF REACH |
|---|---|
Feed publications | 4.8% |
Stories | 21.7% |
Reels | 73.5% |
This validates the Reels-led strategy quantitatively: Reels delivered ~3.4× the reach of Stories and ~15× the reach of feed posts.
What these numbers say about the strategy
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The paid-led strategy is working at scale — 384K accounts reached in a single 30-day window, growing +6,866.9% versus the prior period.
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The content mix is correct — 73.5% of reach from Reels matches the platform's actual algorithmic reward, so creative effort is correctly weighted toward the highest-leverage format.
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Discovery > retention is the current pattern — 98.2% of viewers are non-followers, meaning the content is reaching new audiences successfully but only a fraction become followers. With 1,321 followers and 384K accounts reached, the follow-conversion rate is ≈0.34%. This is the next problem to solve.
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Organic alone would be ~39,500 views — useful, but not commercial scale. Paid amplification is what unlocks the order volume the brand needs.
Business outcome
The Instagram is now delivering inbound discovery at a materially different scale than before March 2026 — reach grew +6,866.9% in the measurement period, with 98.2% of viewers being non-followers (i.e. new prospective customers placed in front of the brand at volumes that did not previously exist). No specific order has yet been formally traced back to a single Reel, however; building that attribution layer — a "How did you find us?" question at first DM, plus Reel-specific discount codes on the top-performing creatives — is the immediate next operational priority and the focus of the next reporting cycle. The current discipline is to be honest about what the Insights do prove (discovery and reach) and what they don't yet prove (closed-loop attribution from Reel view to order).
Honest caveats on the data
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95% of views are paid. This is disclosed openly throughout this case study. A pure-organic claim would be misleading; the honest framing is that I designed and executed a paid + organic blended strategy, and the numbers reflect that combined effort.
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Follow-conversion rate is low (0.34% of reached accounts followed). This is a real strategic weakness flagged in the next section, not hidden.
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Some Highlight cover images (O'Cheal, Pudaier) reference partner brands or affiliated lines — those are the brand owner's commercial relationships, not my work.
5. What I Learned
What worked best
The combination of paid and organic content was what drove the strongest growth because organic Reels built engagement while paid boosts expanded visibility to a much larger audience. Using both strategies together helped the account reach significantly more people than organic posting alone would have achieved.
What didn't work — the bottleneck I identified
One weakness I noticed was that the account reached a very large number of people, but the follow-conversion rate was still relatively low, which showed that discovery was working better than retention. This made me realise that the profile, Highlights, and pinned content needed to do a better job convincing viewers to stay and follow the page after watching a Reel.
Comparing this with my Facebook work for Groupe-chichi
Working on Eyeliner Stamp and Groupe-chichi showed me how different platforms require completely different marketing strategies depending on the product and audience. Instagram worked best for Eyeliner Stamp because the product was visual, fast to demonstrate, and suited to paid Reels and impulse buying, while Facebook worked better for Groupe-chichi because customers wanted to see real completed projects and build trust before making a high-value purchase.
The paid-versus-organic balance was also very different between the two businesses. Eyeliner Stamp relied heavily on paid and boosted Reels to scale reach quickly, whereas Groupe-chichi achieved stronger results through organic posting, community trust, and customer enquiries generated over time without paid advertising.
The biggest lesson I learned was that there is no single social media strategy that works for every business. Platform choice, content style, and paid promotion all need to match the product, target audience, and customer buying journey.
Marketing skills I built
Running the Eyeliner Stamp account helped me improve my Instagram marketing skills, especially analysing Insights data such as reach, saves, profile visits, and the difference between paid and organic performance. I also became much better at creating short-form Reels content using phone-shot footage, CapCut editing, and stronger hooks in the first few seconds to keep viewers watching.
I developed practical experience using Meta Ads Manager, including audience targeting across Algeria and France, budget management, and boosting high-performing organic Reels. Working on both Eyeliner Stamp and Groupe-chichi at the same time also improved my ability to adapt strategies across different platforms, audiences, and customer buying behaviours.
What I'd do differently — what comes next
The next thing I would improve is the follow-conversion rate by making the profile, Highlights, and pinned Reels stronger for first-time visitors arriving from ads and viral Reels. I also want to reduce the account's dependence on paid promotion by building stronger organic engagement through more consistent Stories, customer interaction, and founder-led content with my sister appearing more directly in the videos.
Another improvement would be creating a clearer DM order system with saved replies and better tracking of where customers discovered the brand. This would make it easier to measure which Reels and campaigns are generating the most real sales and repeat customers.
Linking this back to the module
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(c) Source and undertake appropriate CPD — built Instagram-specific platform knowledge + Meta Ads Manager working knowledge via Meta Business Suite, Insights interpretation, and Reels-format study.
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(d) Identify relevant marketing practices and apply them within a project setting — applied platform-fit reasoning AND paid-vs-organic strategy reasoning to a live family-business client; the blended strategy is the practice being demonstrated.
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(g) Demonstrate evidence of the development of technical marketing skills — Instagram-specific content production, Reels hook design, Meta Ads campaign management, Insights interpretation including paid-vs-organic attribution, weekly iteration cycle.
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(h) Demonstrate the personal skills and competencies required to operate within a professional marketing environment — accountable to a real (family) client with measurable expectations; managing the boundary dynamic of working with a sibling on her brand; comfortable disclosing strategy mix honestly (the 95% paid share) rather than overclaiming organic results.