How To Harness The Power Of Social Media For Your Salon

One of the most important aspects of running a successful salon is its marketing. If you are a salon owner or manager, then you need to tap into the power of social media. Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are extremely important if you want to increase awareness about the services that you provide. In 2021, <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/23865/13-mind-bending-social-media-marketing-statistics.aspx"> almost 80% of businesses </a> said that social media marketing contributed to the growth of their revenue and profit margin. If you’re new to using social media as a marketing channel, then this article will be perfect for you.

First of all, a sound social media marketing strategy will allow you to set reasonable goals, map out strategies to achieve said goals, and use metrics to measure the effectiveness of your efforts. Posting pictures and stories on Instagram everyday can seem like a hassle, but this article will contain sound advice that you can use. In the digital age of the 21st century, it is very important to harness the potential of the tools that are at your disposal. It is not a surprise that social media is a potent and very effective medium.

By the end of 2023, there will be 450 million internet users in India. The social media network penetration in India is <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/240960/share-of-indian-population-using-social-networks/"> a whopping 60% </a> - meaning that almost 270 million people use social media on a daily basis. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are naturally the most popular social media platforms today. As a salon owner, having an active social media account will help to humanise your business. You will have an outlet to directly reach out to prospective clients who would be interested in the unique services that you are offering.

It can also do wonders for your brand awareness and customer loyalty. You must have seen examples of innovative social media ad campaigns used by brands to build a rapport with their prospective client base. You can also leverage the immense power of Facebook ads which can be directly integrated into Instagram as well. While it is advisable to follow an organic marketing strategy on social media, you can also make use of advertisements if you require an extra push.

As was mentioned before, you cannot make sporadic posts on Instagram and expect to see tangible results in your bottom line from that. If you want actual results, then you need to devise and implement a sound social media marketing strategy. In this section, you will find a detailed explanation of the preliminary steps involved in coming up with such a strategy.

Choose your Social Media Platforms

Your business needs to choose the platforms it wants to be active on. Since your business is a salon, optics play a very important role. Your services need to appear glamorous and inviting if you want clients to make visits and book appointments. To that end, an Instagram account is absolutely necessary. Instagram has a lot of exciting plugins and options for business accounts that you can use to track follower engagement, user statistics, and so on. You can integrate it with Facebook if you want to start an affordable social media ad campaign.

Invest in a Brand Identity

An important piece of advice that social media marketers always give - don’t be afraid to step out and create a brand identity for your business. Customers will always choose to take their business to brands that are honest, inviting, and have an agreeable identity. If you curate a unique voice for your brand, then you can implement it by using your social media channels. It is also fun for your staff to be involved when you’re making reels, doing photo sessions, and goofing off!

Put Your Services and Staff in the Spotlight

People don’t just become loyal customers to salons, they also return because they love the staff! Take advantage of this fact and design your strategy to put your staff in the spotlight. At the same time, you can use Instagram and Facebook to show off the various services that you offer. You can also take pictures of satisfied customers to post on your social media handles - this increases the legitimacy and “trust factor” of your business. Showing off the skills of your staff will get your followers interested in your business.

Take a Long, Hard Look at your Competition

Before you begin posting pictures, reels, and stories on your social media, you need to assess the activities of your competitors and contemporaries. If you are interested in catering to a certain area, check out the social media profiles of other businesses in that area to gauge the preferences of people in that area. It is a good idea to see what other salons are doing and engaging with other business owners. You can glean rich insights from a simple conversation.

Invest in the Quality of Your Posts

You don’t need professional cameras and editing software for your salon’s Instagram, but please invest in a good camera or phone. Using high-quality gear will increase the legitimacy of your brand. Consequently, the brand image of your business will also improve. It is a good idea to post enticing photos and videos to get people interested in your salon. For a client-facing business like a salon, good optics are extremely important.

Engage with All of Your Social Media Followers

You also need to engage with your followers on the platform. It is impossible to respond to every comment and DM, but you should make an effort to direct serious doubts and issues immediately. You can also set up automated replies on your social media DM to improve user engagement. Pay serious attention to the feedback that you get in your comments and messages - and then tweak your content to satisfy your followers. Engage with the followers and act as if they are clients who are currently sitting in your salon.

Regular engagement and posting is extremely important if you want your account to have a high social media visibility. Plan out posts ahead and create a social media post calendar for the content that you will publish everyday. You can also automate some of this work so that posts go up at the correct times with minimal hassle. You can also share posts on multiple platforms using Facebook - eliminating the hassle of reposting entire posts on different platforms. Remember to add last-minute details like locations, tags, and correct captions during posting. Social media hashtags are also very important for proper visibility.

The posts should not be totally promotional, as that can be a major turn-off for clients who want authenticity. On the whole, a 75-25 mix of educational and promotional is the best way ahead. If you address real doubts that customers can have about common salon treatments like manicures, spas, hair treatments, etc. you will improve your legitimacy among your target demographic. Remember to maintain consistency with the voice used for your social media.

Before deciding on metrics for your social media strategy, you need to establish your goals and objectives. Here are some of the most commonplace goals that any salon would have initially -

Increase Revenue : Social media marketing should bring in more customers, thus improving the overall revenue earned by the salon per client. This is a wholly numerical metric that can be judged easily.

Improving Brand Awareness : Another key objective of social media marketing is to create and curate a unique brand identity and fostering brand awareness. However, this aspect is difficult to judge in a quantitative manner.

Once you have the goals in mind, you need to come up with a set of Key Performance Indicators or KPIs. These are the “metrics” that will allow you to judge the efficiency of your social media campaigns. Here are some metrics that you can start with. Over time, you can also start to create your own composite metrics.

Website Visits from Social Media

Overall Social Media Engagement - likes, comments, shares, etc.

Number of Email/Phone Number Sign Ups

Track these statistics on a regular basis so that you know what changes you have to make to your overall strategy. This will allow you to get the best return on investment (ROI) for your business.

This has been a comprehensive guide that will help you get started with a social media strategy for your salon. With this advice and a little practice, you can start getting some tangible results soon. At the same time, you can also use salon management platforms like DINGG to efficiently orchestrate the various elements of running a salon. The important thing to remember is that subtlety is the most powerful tool at your disposal. It will allow you to reach a large audience in a genuine and organic manner. It will also enable you to construct a unique brand identity and voice.