How Salons Can Utilise Social Media For Success

As professionals, there is no doubt that social media is especially useful in the salon industry to market your business, as much of what a salon does is visual. In theory, setting up a social media account for your business and posting various images and videos of your incredible work in the salon should be a pull factor to draw in new clients, but it takes more than just posting a few pictures on your social media account to be a success. You need a good mix and variety of different types of content that will garner more awareness and engagement and keep loyal clients coming back to you.

What is Your Goal With Salon Social Media?

Salon owners have recognised the importance of digital marketing including quality photography, branding and online advertising, which naturally support social media activity. Before developing a social media strategy, it’s important to consider the ultimate goal of social media for your salon.

Social media offers a wide range of options and unique opportunities to grow your businesses, no matter what social platform you use. Here are some typical business goals and examples of how to achieve them for your salon.

Goal 1: To increase booking within the salon 

Client Testimonials

People like to see validation of your work and a great way to share this on social media is through client testimonials and reviews. Whether they send you a text thanking you for how good their skin feels or have left a google review for your salon, use this content and share it to your feed. Don’t worry if you’re not a mastermind graphic designer, there are plenty of free templates such as Canva that you can use to create this content.

User Generated Content

User-generated content often generates higher engagement rates than owned content, most likely due to the fact people often tend to create an element of trust in other people's opinions. If a client uploads a photo of their post-treatment glow or a before and after and tags your salon in that content, be sure to reshare it, with their permission of course.

Goal 2: To create more awareness of the beauty and wellness Industry:

Educational posts

Customers like to know that the knowledge of the salon staff makes them experts in their field. A way you can show this is by acting as more than just a service but as a helpful resource too. Offer tips on your social media feed and in your stories. Educational and ‘How-to” videos are popular and great for engagement.

FAQs

If you have staff that specialise in certain areas of beauty and wellness, hold a Q&A session live on your social media to keep customers engaged with queries they might have about treatments and services. This is also a great way to involve your staff in content creation.

If your staff are not comfortable going live on social media, simply upload a photo with the FAQ (e.g. What treatment can help remove pigmentation?) and use your post caption to answer the question.

Skin Type Posts

Customers don’t just care about the service being provided; they’re also invested in knowing about the products being used in your salon. This is a great opportunity to educate your customers on what exactly is being used during their treatment and why you have selected that specific item.

This kind of post works to target the audience of whatever particular skin type, condition or concern that you are talking about. Whether it be professional treatments for dehydrated skin in Winter, or an at-home cleanser recommendation for ageing skin.

While you can also attract brand new customers who are loyal to certain brands or prefer specific ingredients, always tag the brands you’re using as this is an easy way to ensure your content is noticed and (fingers crossed) shared by those bigger brands in return for your salon loyalty.

Goal 3: To Improve your customer service and loyalty

Before and after posts

Before and after photos are a great way to show off your talent and brag about the incredible results that you are achieving for your clients whilst grabbing users’ attention. Before & after photos work in the same way a testimonial does except it’s visual so therefore more appealing. A before-and-after post helps to sell your business in a way that eliminates having to do the actual “hard sell”.

Sneak Peeks

Giving your social media followers an exclusive “behind the scenes” peek into your treatments can be a great way to get potential clients excited about what your salon can offer. Not only that, but it keeps existing clients coming back for more.

An alternative behind the scenes option is to show your followers what’s going on around the salon, whether you share a photo or video of your new treatment room or a picture of a staff member reaching for a product on the top shelf. Sneak peeks of your daily routine are guaranteed to grab your follower’s attention and peak curiosity into the day-to-day happenings of your salon.

Introduce Yourself on Video

Getting comfortable on video is a skill that is going to serve you well as it’s the perfect way to connect with clients and deepen your relationship with them. Start by doing a 30-second video introducing yourself. You tend to think that the followers you have are only consistent with current clients and that they already know everything about you as a business, but that’s not always true. There are quite a few people who follow you who aren’t your clients yet, and they don’t know that much about you. Now is the perfect time to show up on video and introduce yourself.

Goal 4: To connect with your audience online in a fun, engaging, and informative way

Motivational Quotes

When used correctly and in the right amount, motivational quotes serve as a great way to break up content on your feed as an inspiring and uplifting mid-week quote. An occasional feel-good post can engage your customers and you can use specific quotes or pictures that you feel define your brand. This is also a great way to link in with popular hashtags for engagement and more eyes on your social media profile and content such as #motivationalmonday #feelgoodfriday

Relatable Memes

Instagram and Tik-Tok users tend to be young and on-trend, and enjoy fun, quirky posts in addition to just product or service-related posts. Add a human side to your page by posting funny uplifting posts in moderation; this is one of the best salon social media content ideas. Do not just focus on selling things on your page, people will connect more with memes, beliefs, and approachable content.

Trends

Talk about current trends, as cool or as crazy as they come, as often you’ll find customers will have an opinion on it and are ready to start engaging! Trends can be informative like tutorials on ways to use products and style hair or be funny to include trending audio or popular concepts in video content that can have a longer shelf life with the potential to go viral.

Goal 5: To aid additional online purchases

One of the most lucrative ways of using social media is to make it easy for your followers to become paying customers online. You can do this by directing them to your salon’s online store, online booking app, or an online gift voucher or e-voucher facility. If you have any of these features enabled via your salon website, chances are that you can link them quite easily to your business’s social media accounts. This also opens the opportunity to have an alternative income stream during non-opening hours via social media by advertising your products and services. A simple ‘add to basket’ button requires no additional up-sell from you or your staff as this can already be done on your social media page and linked through to the item.

In Conclusion

These social media tips will allow you to promote your salon and gain new clients, retain those clients through brand loyalty, and create an interactive relationship with your followers.

Hopefully, this post has sparked some ideas to help you achieve your overall goal within your social media and business growth strategy.

To get more social media top tips, come and meet Ashleigh Watson, Founder and owner of Social Media Marketing Consultancy, Copper Square at the Salon Life Convention in Manchester on May 15th 2023.

Article written for Salon Life by Ashleigh Watson, owner of Social Media Marketing Consultancy, Copper Square

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