You may be curious about what it takes to get eye-catching Instagram photos in a short amount of time? Instagram is a vital channel for hairstylists and barbers, making sense because, much like hair styling Instagram is a visual platform! Because it is a visual platform, hairstylists have to become excellent at producing and capturing photos that highlight their work and capture the beauty of their creativity. If you can master the art of taking pictures, it can help you attract new clients, build your book, highlight your skills and creativity, and express your true authentic self. On the other end, boring or dull photos can do precisely the reverse; poorly produced images have the ability to detur new clients, away and leave them in the chair of another salon or hairdresser. Below you can find tips and tricks to improve your Instagram content and take more impressive customer hair pictures for your social media. Your Instagram page is your portfolio. It is a free platform to showcase your art and get new customers in your chair. Use these tips and tricks to ensure killer photos and Instagram flow.
Three Important Variables To Pay Attention To
The next three tips are important tips to pay attention to! These few tips can and will make or break your Instagram photos!
The Supplies To Have On Hand
Something to have that will keep you organized and help your quick photoshoot go smoother and quicker is an “Instagram bag.” Grab a small bag that you love and fill it with the essentials you need to take pictures. You should keep a finishing brush, a tail comb in your bag, some sectioning clips, hair spray, and hair accessories such as hair ties, pins, and fun props for the hair. A great trick to jazz up a photo is a cute hair clip to draw the eye in. Having this bag prepped and ready to go will save you so much time and keep your Instagram photos creative and beautiful.
The Positioning Of Your Phone Or Camera
The trick positioning of your camera is essential! To get the best angle using your phone’s camera, you will need to hold your phone up high, angle it downwards and lean the phone both forwards and backward to achieve the ideal angle and lighting for the photo. Learning these techniques will make you a pro in no time. If your salon doesn’t have great natural lighting investing in a ring light will help illuminate your photos beautifully. If your salon does have natural lighting, make sure to take your client to wherever that is to take your Instagram photos.
The Look Or Looks You Want To Accomplish
Getting inspiration from Pinterest or other hairstylist’s pages will assist in different styles to try. There are so many stunning styles you can put the hair into to highlight the dimension. Braids are fantastic ways to show off the hard work you put into the color process. Another viral trend right now is bubble braids which are super cute and fun. Top knots are in right now and a stylish way to show off your skills. You will want to have various styles on your Instagram instead of the same type every time. Find a few that you feel will really do the trick!
TIPS AND TRICKS
Your Main Focus Should Be On The Hair, Not The Face
Many of your customers and clients will feel uncertain about their faces being blasted out all over Instagram. In reality, most of your customers will not desire to have their faces posted all over social media, and you should recognize that. When you finish your service, and the customer is still in your chair, ask them if you can picture their hair. If they are hesitant or say they don’t want their face in the photos, you can assure them the images will be just of their hair, not face at all. Usually, this works perfect, especially right after you’ve shown them how incredible they look and how beautiful their hair is!
Make It Fun For Your Clients
The best pictures you will get will be from your actual customers immediately after you finish an incredible service on them! Your clients are your target audience, so capturing the hair and posting it to your Instagram will attract more of your target audience. You’ll want to make this experience a staple in your salon appointments and take pics after every service. Even if your client gets the same color every time, you should still take the time to take photos of their hair. If you are concerned about your client feeling awkward, play some music, make it fun, and keep reminding them how amazing their hair looks. After the first couple of pics, show your client a few to show them how amazing their hair looks. They will most likely love it and want you to tag them on Instagram and send the post to them!
Natural Lighting Is Your Bestfriend
Lighting is KEY! When it comes to tips and tricks this is an important one! A big mistake that many stylists make is just taking the client’s photos in their chair. Sadly, the lighting in the majority of salons is not suitable for a picture. There will be shadows and word lighting when you are inside, depending on the salon light bulbs. Because of that, the photo will not perfectly display what the color looks like in real life. The best lighting to take a photo in is indirect, natural lighting. It will do wonders for the Instagram pics, and it will give your masterpiece the justice it deserves!
Pay Attention To Your Backdrop
With any customer hair picture, you will want the main focus on the hair, not anything else! Photos, where the customer is still in the chair or taking an image where you can see the salon in the backdrop will cause the customer’s hair to get lost in all the other details. You will not want that to happen. If your salon does not have a plain wall to take Instagram photos against, you can purchase a backdrop or find another place outside of the salon with indirect lighting. Another great option is to shoot the pictures down a hall, so there is nothing behind the client’s hair! The main point is to ensure the backdrop isn’t untidy and distracting!
Schedule The Time To Take Instagram Pictures
Make these photoshoots a non-negotiable part of your services. Plan it in your day. Not on the client’s interest so much but on your part. You will have clients that don’t have time or don’t want pictures taken, and that’s fine, but you should have that time scheduled out anyways. Hey, maybe you’ll get a chance to take a bite of food in between clients if they decline to have their photo taken. The point here is to schedule that time no matter what. That way, you don’t feel rushed and don’t run behind for your next client.
Don’t Stop At 1 or 2 Photos, Take A Bunch
Catching the perfect photo will not be a one-and-done matter, so make sure to take plenty of pictures! Right after you and your customer have agreed to take the photos, you will want to take as many good images as attainable. You’ll want to take at least 20 pictures to ensure you get one good one for insta. Try different angles and styles. Change up the poses and throw in a hair accessory. Try to gather as much Instagram content as you can. Some of your clients might not mind having their faces in the photos. If that is the case, you can do some cute poses with their face in the shot and even let them take a few selfies with your camera. All these pictures’ goal is to have content for a later date and a post you may make the day or week.
Edit Your Photos The Correct Way
As a hairstylist, you are probably very skeptical about editing photos because there is nothing worse than a client coming in with a photoshopped picture and asking for their hair to look just like it. However, editing your photo is essential; you won’t want to edit them too much, but you can do things like blurring the background if something distracts behind the client or brightens up the photo if you couldn’t find the correct lighting. Facetune is a easy to use and super efficient app for editing. Once you get down good editing techniques it will take little to no time to enhance your photos. The trick here is to enhance your pictures for vibrance and to show off the fantastic work that you accomplished.
Get Inspiration And Know Which Poses Work Best
Not all customers will be super comfortable in front of a camera, and that’s completely okay! The majority of your clients will need direction on how to hold their hair and where to look. Breaking it down as simple as possible is best for not overwhelming your clients. You will want to look at other stylists’ Instagrams and Pinterest pages to get ideas for poses for photos. If you’re going to experiment, ask a co-worker to take pictures with you and figure out what works best. There are many different techniques to finding the right poses.
Know When The Best Time To Post Is
Check out your algorithms and research when the best time to post is. You will want as many people to see your post as possible. The more eyes you reach, the better. Sundays are a great time to post and also evenings. It depends on your followers and location. Instagram has excellent tools that you can utilize to find out when you have the most activity on your page. You will want to post when you have the most engagement on your page
How To Gain Traction On Your Post
Hashtags are a great way to gain traction on your post. Research the hashtags that are popular in your area. You will also want to make sure you are tagging other pages and people to get more views on your post. A great caption text on your post will get the attention of the person on the other side of the phone. Hashtags are unique to areas so you won’t want to use the same hashtags as someone in LA if you are in Alabama. If there is a popular event in our area use that hashtag so people in your area searching for that event’s hashtags also see your amazing work. Another step you should take is posting your new picture on your Instagram stories to gain traction.
Written By: Catie Delahanty
