Social media networks are taking over more every day. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it sure does feel like each of these networks is fighting for our attention. As a barber or cosmetologist, are you standing out from the rest of your competition on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and your website? In today’s information age it’s imperative that your posts online via social media are drawing attention from the right people–because the right people turn into the right clients! Here are some online marketing tips to help your barbershop or cosmetology pages provide valuable beauty information to your clients over these different networks and rise to the top on the overcrowded social media platforms we all know and love.
Is it Bustling In Your Barbershop? Silent in the Salon? Establish Some Goals For Your Social Media Barber And Cosmetology Pages And Get That Traffic Moving!
How will you know where to start on social media if you don’t have a goal? You should have five goals you want to achieve through your social media and marketing interactions. Your goals will be the motivation you need to achieve success. Using a piece of paper, write down five goals you want to achieve through your marketing and social media efforts. Be mindful when making these goals. You will want them to be specific, measurable, and obtainable.
Want to get more traffic in your barbershops and salons? Then your goals should directly correlate with your barber or cosmetology career. And then don’t forget to read them back, people! Periodically review your beauty and hair goals by giving them a frequent read–and when you’ve achieved one, add a new social media goal to the list! It’s a small, but important step for staying focused and motivated to attracting new clients and achieving your goals.
Study your Social Media Audience To Refine And Maximize Your Business Effectiveness Online
Now that you have written down your goals, it’s time to look at the social media audience using and engaging in your network content. Without the attention of your customers (your target audience), your plans will be useless. Planning around your customers will help you come up with the perfect strategy. You’re probably wondering why your audience needs to be the spotlight of your content? It’s because the content you create on social media helps define the questions and interests of the audience that ultimately follows your media on a regular basis.
Are your followers there to see your extension skills? Is your audience there for some barbering knowledge or cutting knowledge? Maybe you have followers who want to learn a small bit more about your barbershop or salon before committing to an appointment. Research your current followers amongst all these networks along with followers of similar pages to yours. Once you figure out who your audience is, you will see which social media networks your customers are using. Then apply your marketing strategy to fit the needs and wants of your followers.
Social Media Is More Than Just Snapchat – Choose Your Platforms And Networks Carefully.
Trying to use all of these social media platforms and networks to attract new customers to your salon or barbershop is a recipe for failure if your audience isn’t on a particular network. Spreading yourself too thin can actually be a liability to your beauty business. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other networks may have a lot of potential customers and contain a ton of information overall, but the important business marketing factor is to be available on the social media platforms that YOUR customers are on. And then create a meaningful impact on those platforms. Just because Facebook is a well-known marketing platform online, that doesn’t exactly mean a large percent of your target business audience is on there. Your new set of customers for your salon or barbershop could easily be on another network! Your marketing strategy should be laser-focused on your followers–and where THEY are.
You need to remember: quality over quantity. Putting out subpar beauty content on your business social media frequently will make a small impact in getting new customers. Posting quality marketing content will attract users and can grow a small audience and engagement into a much bigger one for your business.
Don’t Forget Your Website!
An area you shouldn’t skip on is truly using your website to its full potential. Having an eye-catching and properly developed website for your business will lay the foundation for your current and future client’s expectations. If your website is dull and boring your clients might reasonably expect the same experience when they come in to get their hair done. An attractive website will draw attention from all sorts of people–including new customers who live in your local area–and get them excited about coming in to see you. This is a must when running your barber or stylist business. If you are a barber, research some hip barbershop websites to see how each barber or barber team are displaying their barbering skills. If you are a hairstylist, research some gorgeous salon websites to see how those cosmetologists are representing their brand. You need to put in a little bit of work online to find the VERY small percent of websites that really attract customers to a salon or barbershop.
Building a website might sound super terrifying and out of your comfort zone, but it’s actually very easy. There are programs that are designed to make it simple for you to build a killer website. Use SquareSpace or Wix to get a simple, but elegant site up fast. These services are team built by experts who specialize in creating sites for people who aren’t coders. You’re a barber or a stylist–you don’t have to be a coder to get a great website! These services also provide easy ways to get SEO (search engine optimization) terms into your website. SEO is great for drawing attention from the big search engines to your website. Looking to highlight that you’re a Tucson barber, a Portland hairstylist, or a Charlotte colorist? Add these terms to the SEO panel in your website builder and the big search engines will pick them up when they scan your website. SEO can be the “secret weapon” to your site’s success to get new, local clientele.
Make sure your website is attached to your social media platforms and networks so that your clients can easily access it. Having a website online is a must to attract new people when running your business–and you can make connecting easier by making sure your site is connected with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and every other social media network you decide to manage.
Are You A Fully Booked Barber or Stylist? Use a Social Media Content Calendar For Your Facebook And Instagram Posts
Use a focused information strategy–this includes figuring out what to post ahead of time so it’s not a daily stress. Planning your social media posts ahead online will make your offline life a whole lot easier. Failing to plan ahead will result in failing on your social media marketing goals. Use the social media tools out there like planners and calendars to plan and organize your content across all of these networks. Online content calendars are great at not only planning your content but also showing you what your page will look like live on various networks once everything is posted. Nothing beats a real-time preview! Setting this up for the week or month will make the social media process streamlined and you will feel less stressed or pressured. Weekly recaps of the hair you created are a great way to get your social media filled with your best work and get interest from new clients.
Use the Business Marketing Tools To Get More People In Your Salon Or Barbershop
Research and find some great social media tools that will help your barbershop or salon manage your accounts across networks and stand out above the rest in the beauty industry. You need to find a social media tool that will help you build the visual content you want to promote your business with. Being that most social media platforms are overrun and crowded networks, it is imperative that your content stands out and engages your audience. Ask your followers questions–a surprisingly large percent will join in and this will enhance your social media account engagement and make your followers pay close attention to your online content.
Also–learn how to use hashtags! You can use hashtags (which are a way to categorize your posts using the “#” symbol) to highlight your specialties, your region, and your style of cutting. Hashtags like #ChicagoBarber and #DenverColorist are definitely searched terms by a lot of people! Find out what hashtags stand out in your area and get them in your posts on your accounts to help new clients find you more effectively.
Tips For Marketing Your Hair Masterpieces on Your Social Media Accounts
Generally, the first place a client will go to search for a new hairstylist or a new barber is social media. An online search for a new barbershop, salon, and hair services is a surprisingly large percent of what customers read and use social media for. Partly because it’s free, but also because the opinions of other local clients weigh so heavily on new customer’s opinions. So, create media that will highlight your best work on social media! This will not only show the client how talented you are but it will give them an idea of your style.
Another great thing about a good set of social media accounts is you can use them to attract JUST the users you want. If you are trying to transition from providing color and cuts to just barbering you can use your social media accounts to post pictures of the best fades that you have executed. Are you wanting to add barbering services to your book of business? Create marketing pictures of men’s cuts to draw the attention of those clients. This way when a new hair client is looking for the best cut in town they know you are their “go-to” barber or cosmetologist! Use your social media accounts as a key strategy to increasing your marketing advantage and growing the business at your barbershop or salon.
Share Your Personal Story on Instagram, Facebook, And Other Social Media Accounts
Keep your social media accounts interesting–and keep your marketing strategy personal–by sharing your personal hair story online to create a virtual bond between you and your followers. You may have some new followers who have never met you before and are just browsing your Facebook to see if your style fits their needs. Another idea is to live vlog throughout your day. Explain to your followers what you are doing live and the transformations you are about to make on your clients. Post up and tell them the story about how you became a master barber! You can use your social media to connect and post information (either prerecorded or live) to your followers and hair clients on an emotional level.
It’s the small things like this kind of marketing that you need to be executing on to make a large percent of your people return to your barbershop or salon again and again! Another way of marketing to your followers is to post a little bit about the team you work within the salon or barbershop. Show them how you work together as a team and learn as a team. Marketing your cohesiveness as a team is an excellent way to attract new customers.
Marketing Your Cosmetologist and Barber Knowledge Online
Your clients come to you because they trust you with their hair. They trust that you know what you are doing and that you’re keeping up with trends. Your clients value your opinion and knowledge. If you are doing a barbering class, create some content, and post about it live on your social media to let your clients know that you take your job seriously and are continuing to learn for THEM! Post tips, tricks, and suggestions on your social media accounts for your clients to see and learn from.
For all you cosmetologists–sharing a quick, free tutorial online on how to achieve the perfect braid using a new technique or sharing a certain product you are enjoying using right now will make your clients feel even more loved. And for you barbers in all those barbershops, men love to get free tips on self-care as well! Create some unique video marketing and post how to take care of their beard just like their barber. Or share a barbering skill they might need and be able to do free at home. Using your social media accounts, you need to get your information out there. And free isn’t a bad strategy when it’s used to post marketing about your valued beauty knowledge and content.
Should Email Marketing Be A Part Of Your Overall Business Strategy?
We say an emphatic “YES!” to business email! Remember, many people here nebulous terms like “the cloud” and “online marketing” and will blend all of these communications methods together. Someone who says they’re “online” may literally just be on email and not a member of any other social media network. Make sure you collect email addresses from your people whenever possible. You can use them to blast out messaging and information on promotions, new articles, fresh product arrivals, and holiday events going on in your salon or barbershop. You can collect these emails from customers in person–and you can also use Facebook and your business website to collect them as well. Use a service like MailChimp to easily organize your business email lists and blast out messages to different segments of your overall user list.
How Often Should You Post Up?
Consistency is key–and your audience will reward you with engagement the more YOU engage on your social media network. You need to do some research and figure out how often your followers might be looking for your business content. People will periodically research a platform for information on some topics much more often than others. So how often are they looking for yours? Will you overwhelm them with a post every day? Or is posting twice a week not enough? Regardless of what the frequency is, you need to prepare information for your people on the frequency they’ll expect. And then deliver that consistently across every social media network you decide to deploy.
It’s not just about the post–this goes for your business email as well. Will your people be okay with one email per week? Or would one email per month be more effective? You want your users to welcome your information and that won’t happen if they are bombarded with it all the time. Conversely, you need to stay engaged with your people so you stay fresh in their minds as a valued service provider. “Out of sight is out of mind” applies to social media as well, and touching your users via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter too infrequently could hurt your ability to get those valuable business referrals we all treasure.
Looking For A New Business Strategy? Hold a Social Media Contest For New And Current Clients!
The possibilities for a contest on social media networks are limitless. A great idea is to make a great gift basket to give away and have your clients share a few reasons they love your services on their social media in order to be entered into your drawing. This way not only are you getting great, free testimonials but you are also getting publicity to their followers who could potentially be your new hair clients! There are great online contests out there for barbers and barbershops too–you can have your clients share a picture of their haircut online and tag you. You can also do a referral program to where you give your clients a free gift after so many referrals from social media.
Not using Twitter? Tips You Need To Build Your Business Networks More Effectively Using Twitter Versus Other Social Media
Twitter can be a very confusing social media platform for users. The strategy for using Twitter as a barber or hairstylist can be a bit mysterious. But used effectively–it can also be a huge resource of information for your followers! It can also serve as a great tool to build your network. Twitter allows you to post up to 280 characters in each post. A good Twitter post is great for free advertising to your clients and makes it very easy to search for information related to your interests. It is a great idea to use Twitter to promote your posts to people from other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.
If you decide to use two or more social media network services, something you can do is connect all of your social media platforms into one large local social media management platform such as Hootsuite. This will allow you to share one post onto all of your social media accounts at the same time. Use strategy like the Twitter post to your advantage by advertising, retweeting, and properly using hashtags to gain followers and build your business and network.
The Secret Weapon To Promoting Your Salon Or Barbershop: Texting
People use their phones all day. One of the greatest ways to engage people directly is via text messaging. It is one of the most effective ways to get someone’s attention immediately. Social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter engage users when they have time to divert their attention–but a text message will rarely be ignored. Collect your user’s phone numbers (where possible) and use online services like Textedly to reach out to a much larger percent of your business audience. Use it sparingly because people are SO in tune with their texts–it’s not something you’d want to be seen as overusing. But used properly, you can drive many more clients to make new appointments and send referrals your way.
One note about this–you need to be responsive. Don’t engage in a business texting campaign if you can’t get back to your users in a timely manner. You might want to consider giving your phone to your assistant to handle during the day for responding while you are in the middle of a service or otherwise busy managing the other aspects of your business.
Marketing Your Business With Social Media = A Plan For Success
If you combine all of the tips we have gone over, you can use the information to propel your business to success through social media marketing. The key to success online is to have a goal, make a plan, study your audience and clients, and create and post quality content on the networks you’ve selected. Everyone loves solid information! Make sure to utilize the social media tools that are available to you in order to really beef up your content and accounts. Great content will be the bones that hold your barbershop or salon strategy together. There are so many benefits to social media if you use it correctly.
Need Help With Your Strategy for Tackling Your Social Media?
Does your team struggle to post online to social media? As a barber or stylist, are you not sure where to begin with social media marketing? Are you bewildered at what your strategy should be? Check out Fully Booked Chair to learn how to create and post cost-effective ads–and manage your business marketing like a BOSS! Fully Booked Chair is a 100 percent online training program that will teach you all the information and marketing strategy that your salon or barbershop can utilize on Facebook, Google Adwords, Instagram, and other social media networks to get new local customers while keeping your marketing costs to a minimum. You can create content and get traffic into your salon or barbershop to double or triple in volume by using all of the secrets and strategy presented in Fully Booked Chair.
Written by Catie Delahanty
Edited by Torrey Loomis
