You’ve got your certificate in hand and you are ready to start the service or salon of your dreams. Or perhaps you’ve been running for a while now but want to understand how to effectively grow your client list.
We’ve got you covered! In this guide we’ll guide you through how to harness the power of social media to launch your beauty business.
One of the first questions you might be asking is…Why is social media important for salons and independent beauticians? Well, to tackle that we’ll need to first ask, how do you attract customers to your salon? The answer: Word of mouth!
For any beauty business word of mouth is everything. Customers want to trust they will have an amazing experience with you and get the results they crave – which is why word of mouth is often how many beauticians start gaining a strong client list.
You can spread those positive reviews, share the glamorous results you achieve and show the kind of experience your clients will have with a much wider audience. Growing your local list, or expanding your beauty brand outwards across the country.
So if you want to get a crash course in digital marketing for salons – this is the place for you! We’ll run you through how to promote your salon online, how to market a beauty treatment and fresh beauty salon content ideas to get your creative juices flowing!
Starting with…
Step 1 – Set your social media goals
Goals are important, they keep us focused and on track. And that’s exactly what you need when approaching your business’s social media strategy – a goal.
While growing your customer base is the overarching theme, there’s a bunch of ways to approach that online. Each beauty boss has individual social media goals, so don’t be afraid to be unique! The social media plan for a beauty salon might look very different to a self-employed beauty freelancer, for example.
Take a second to sit down and write out your goals for your social media use. Here are some examples to get you started:
Do you want to…
- get engagement and feedback on your work and grow your personal profile in the industry?
- connect with a niche clientele and grow your reputation in that area?
- build awareness for your salon or brand in the local area?
- expand your beauty brand nationally?
- increase your customer base by 10%/20%/30%?
- build a following and become an influencer?
- create a local community of beauty lovers?
- nurture your current clients and incentivise them to introduce friends?
- reach new rockstar staff and attract the best talent to your salon?
Once you have a clear set of goals, you’ll start to understand how you can promote your beauty salon or service on social media effectively – rather than just posting away. You can use your time more efficiently this way!
The next step in how to market a beauty salon or service is…
Step 2 – Choose your platforms
Clearly, there are quite a few different social media platforms out there that are relevant for salons, spas and therapists. But which ones should you use?
First off, try focusing on one or two platforms. By honing your efforts this way, you’re much more likely to produce the kind of content that will achieve your goals, rather than spreading yourself too thin.
Here’s a breakdown of the most common platforms, what they can offer your business and how to use them the right way:
- Facebook is all about community, and a Facebook group is a fantastic place to grow a loyal and engaged customer base. Mostly frequented by Boomers, it’s a great place for organic referrals and discussion.
- Engage your local community by offering coupons, referral discounts, top tips & plenty of discussion topics. Be sure to monitor activity and keep the positive vibes flowing!
- Using ads can really boost your client list, even a $10 ad could net you 3-4 new clients who could add thousands to your turnover each year.
- Instagram is all about high-quality lifestyle imagery and is used predominantly by Millennials and Gen Z. So it’s the perfect place to really sell the ‘experience’ of your treatments and how they will make your audience feel. Plus it’s a great place to build your personal brand – if that’s your goal.
- If you’ve got gorgeous decor in your salon, you NEED to be flaunting it here. Make sure your images are high quality, using local hashtags and locations to increase your visibility in your area.
- Engage with your audience, and consider reaching out to a local influencer for a discounted treatment in exchange for a shout out – this can help to boost your word of mouth power.
- Another highly visual platform, Pinterest is the go-to place for beauty inspo. The best social media platform for a hair salon for sure, you can attract potential customers to your website by showcasing your unique style with an inspirational lookbook of gorgeous hair extensions.
- The average age of a Pinterest user is 40, but active posters tend to be younger and the amount of website referrals you can get from Pinterest is super high!
- Make sure your imagery is inspirational, clear and high quality to capture the interest of a scroller. However, it’s very easy to repurpose your existing content into a Pinterest post, making it a pretty low maintenance platform.
Youtube
- The go-to place for tutorials, reviews and top tips. While it’s perhaps the most high maintenance platform, it’s the perfect place to build a personal brand or start that influencer dream you’ve always had. It’s mostly viewed by those in their 20’s-30’s.
- YouTube is all about sharing knowledge and expertise, so create videos showing beauty tips, before and after clips, and other useful information that your viewers can use and benefit from. Over time, you want to develop a signature style that people come back for!
- It’s important to have high-quality footage, use attractive headlines, clear descriptions, and keywords in your videos on YouTube so that they reach a wider audience. This might require a bit of initial investment to get you going.
TikTok
- TikTok is a super creative, video-based social media platform. If you’re a creative makeup artist, hair technician or nail technician – it’s a natural fit! Around half of TikTok users are under the age of 30 and more women than men use the app.
- Create video tutorials, glamorous before & afters and share your top tips in bite-size chunks. Ask your audience what they are looking for, use hashtags & include your logo.
- TikTok isn’t the place for an outright sales pitch, you’ll need to allow your results to speak for themselves and be subtle about your marketing.
Step 3 – Hone your marketing
Make every post count by taking into account the following top tips:
- Have a clear sense of your audience – What is their age, their occupation, spending power & preferences? Make sure your marketing messaging aligns with what they expect, want and desire!
- Stay unique – What drew you to start a beauty business? What are you most passionate about within the industry? Add a sense of you, and the faces behind a brand to stay authentic and unique.
- Post consistently and clearly – Set up a regular posting schedule so that you stay active and engaged with your clients, and be sure all your posts align with your goals.
- Give them a reason to follow – Constantly promoting your services is sure to get a bit stale! Make sure you are offering value to your followers to keep them coming back.
- Choose recognisable names and logos – Try and keep your platform’s image and naming consistent, so that you are easy to find and identify. For example, if you are creating a hair salon marketing plan, it’s a good idea to create a logo that shows up well against different hair colours!
- Get video savvy – Video is becoming super important in the social media world, so make sure you have some kind of video content built into your strategy (see some examples below for inspo!)
- Use UGC – UGC stands for ‘user-generated content’, and it means content that’s created by your clients or followers. UGC is the equivalent of the best review you could ever get, as it’s proof of customers loving and trusting your services.
Bonus step – Beauty business content ideas
Wondering exactly how to promote your salon on social media? Here are some ideas for luscious, appealing and engaging beauty salon content:
- Launch teaser countdown (a great way to build momentum with a new business)
- Behind the scenes shots and tours
- Slow-mo video reveals of makeup or hair looks
- Share before and after shots (with customer’s permission)
- Host Q&A sessions taking followers’ queries
- Share your story and your employees’ stories
- Share tips and tricks, beauty hacks and your go-to products
- Review new products everyone is talking about
- Provide your ‘top 10’ (mascaras, hairdryers etc.)
- Run a giveaway or competition (perhaps a photo competition to collect client photos to use for your UGC)
- Run polls and ask questions about what your customers want from you
- Share fun lifestyle images and ask clients to tag their bestie
- Share customer stories of their favourite treatments and their own beauty journey
- Share upcoming events in your salon
- Share upcoming events in your local community
- Share customer reviews and testimonials
There you have it – our guide to digital marketing for salons with tips for how to market a beauty treatment. Remember that social media is a long game, but well worth it as an effective strategy to build your client list and boost that gorgeous beauty business.
If you are looking to expand your services, uplevel your skillset or simply add another string to your influencer-bow, check out our range of incredible beauty courses. Taught online for maximum efficiency, you’ll be led by industry experts through thorough units designed to give you a cutting edge in the industry. Plus, you’ll get a beauty kit sent straight to your door with everything you need to get that business started ASAP!
Let’s do this!