March 6, 2018

Leveraging Social Media to Grow Your Salon Business

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Are you leveraging social media to grow your business?

The way that we advertise to bring in new clients and traffic has changed. Print ads, phone books, and billboards are less effective as everything has moved to digital. So what are your options to drive in new traffic?

It’s important to have a responsive website design, email marketing and loyalty programs, as well as a big social media marketing plan, which I talk about in Proven Digital Marketing Strategies for Your Salon, and it’s also important for beauty professionals to be where their audience is.

There are many tools and resources available to assist you in improving your online presence. It’s getting attention in this scroll world that becomes the challenge.

Be…Social

While the center point and hub of all of your digital marketing efforts should be your website and blog, it is imperative to focus on the importance of your social media reach, relevance, and engagement. Salons are by nature social environments (the neighborhood beauty parlor is the Facebook news feed of yesteryear), and salons have a visual story to tell.

Pictures Tell Stories

One of the best strategies, is posting pictures of your work to your salon’s Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter pages. But it is so important to engage with fans and provide exclusive deals to those who follow you on social media avenues. And don’t forget to actually engage with people online, don’t just announce things – interact and be social.

Social sites are predominantly a female audience with 64% Twitter, 58% Facebook, 82% Pinterest, 68% Instagram being women. The great news for beauty service professionals: 92% of women share experiences, reviews, and deals with others online!

Social media is just one of the many tools you have to market your business, and its value comes in its real-time nature. No other marketing tool gives you the ability to truly engage back-and-forth with your clients when they are away from the salon.

Here are some best practices across 2 platforms, Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook

Make sure you use a custom profile image, a clear image of you, your location, your logo, something that resembles your brand and core values.

Create a custom cover photo or a collage of your work. Make sure it’s sized to fit Facebook’s cover photo dimensions so it isn’t blurry. I like to use Canva.

Complete the “About” section as possible. The more information, the better —include all of the services you provide — from cut & color, to mani/pedi, to bridal packages, or makeup lessons — and phone/email.

Including your personal bio also helps make clients feel confident in who you are and why they should choose you. Be sure to also link to your other social channels and your website. Give your clients more outlets to interact with you.

Post at least once per day, make sure you do it on the same day and time. Consistency is critical to develop engagement. You may have to play around with the day/time that works best for your followers, but eventually you’ll find a time that generates the most engagement. Stick with it. Use the schedule tool if you have to just to stay consistent.

Keep in mind, you don’t always have to share images of your own work. You can share helpful beauty-related articles or others’ work that you admire.

Ask questions-people LOVE to give their opinion. Plus, this helps build community and keeps your page seen on other’s newsfeeds.

Take about 15 minutes per day to comment, reply, message, and engage on other relevant pages-this is crucial.

Go Live! Take a daily or weekly time where you can go live on Facebook to create the ultimate engagement. You can do live tutorials, live Q & A, or even a live educating about a product or service that you offer. Be creative and have fun.

Run contests, share news, survey your clients, or just post a happy client offering a video testimonial.

Consider Facebook Ads. This method can be effective if you target very specific clientele. Facebook lets you set up specific demographics, and it will be worth your investment. Don’t be afraid to pay $50-$150 per month on sponsored/boosted posts/pages, even $3 will take you a lot farther than $0.

There are other social media platforms besides Facebook, and it is important to create a strong visual brand on Instagram. With beauty being such a visual market, Instagram is an ideal social channel to promote your brand.

Instagram

I suggest opening up an account under your business name, so this is not just your personal page. However, you can still use your personal page to share, comment, and further expose your branded business page.

Write your locations, services, specialties, core message, and also include your email, website, and Facebook page in your profile section.

Photos are best in natural sunlight. If you want to really focus on image-driven content, you may want to use editing tools to control the brightness and contrast. Just be mindful of filters, and don’t feel you have to use them. Promote an accurate representation of your work.

The most successful accounts post daily. Feature new looks or products you’re using.

Tag your photos! Tag brands, models, staff, and use hashtags in a separate comment. You don’t want to spam the photo description, but go ahead and go wild in the first comment with hashtags!

Follow related accounts in the beauty industry: MUAs, stylists, beauty schools, brands, industry professionals like photographers, but don’t forget to follow your clients and tag them (with permission).

Search hashtags to find accounts that are trending and relate to your brand.

Invest 15-20 minutes per day to comment, like, share on other accounts, as many as your own. The longer you spend engaging, the more engagement you’ll receive!

Create a document or note with all of the relevant, trending hashtags, and copy & paste them into your posts-this will save you time.

Keep it real with creating Instagram Stories and videos. This will create more engagement and allow you the ability to boost your presence without over-posting on your feed.

If you didn’t catch my LIVE session on Facebook, you can catch it here. You may even pick up more tips and tricks that I didn’t type up 😉