Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is a social media success story

The world waited with baited breath for the release of Rihanna's Fenty Beauty, and now that it's here, people can't stop talking about it. In its first month on shelves, the beauty brand, which launched at the beginning of September and recently released a holiday collection, earned $72 million in earned media value, according to a WWD report.

Fenty's earned media value — which the report describes as "an estimated value of publicity gained through digital earned media and their respective engagement levels" — outpaced the earnings of other major brands, including Kylie Cosmetics, Urban Decay, NYX, and more. Only two well established brands, MAC and Too Faced, beat out Fenty Beauty in that metric in the month of September.

The brand's success has been hinged on its social media prowess; according to Pop Sugar, 132 million people watched Fenty tutorials on YouTube in September.