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5 Ways Some Social Media Savvy Can Win New Customers for Your Salon

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[Originally appeared on beauty & wellness website]

While most people realize these days that a strong online presence makes good business sense, many beauty and wellness professionals just don’t have the time to learn how best to market their services on social media. If you’re keen to reach out to new customers online but don’t know where to focus your energy (or what’s left of it!), take a glance at the following tips—and start building your virtual empire.

There are two social media platforms that beauty and wellness businesses should absolutely dedicate some time to at least a few times a week—if not daily. And that’s Facebook and Instagram.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t bother with any of the others. There are certainly strong cases to be made for the likes of Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube, it’s just they haven’t been designed to help businesses like yours target local audiences as well as those in Zuckerberg’s kingdom.

1. Start posting kick-ass photos on your Instagram page

    With over 1 billion users, chances are a good proportion of your target audience use Instagram.

    The platform is a perfect way to show off your talents. Utilize the main feed by posting your most creative and eye-catching shots—It’s recommended you post at least once a day, but only if you can keep up that consistency (and without posting any duff pics, either)!

    You should also take advantage of the stories feature, which is a great way to share quick, fun videos of your daily goings on. You can also create polls, ask opinions and loads of other things that all help nurture a sense of community amongst your followers.

    Talking of followers, here are some quick tips on how to build your Instagram fanbase:

    • - Find your competitor pages and follow their followers
    • - Comment on other photos that are seen by your local audience
    • - Encourage your customer base to follow you (in store, via email and on any promotional material)
    • - Use appropriate #hashtags in your posts
    1. 2. Show off your fun and personal side

    If you need to share news with your customer base—be it updated opening hours, an offer, or a cancellation—Facebook is your place to put it (along with your email newsletter).

    But you should also use Facebook to share fun, humanizing stories—like employee birthdays, business milestones and community engagement. Your follower base are much more likely to react to these kinds of posts (as long as you upload a new, relevant photo!), and higher engagement thrusts you into countless other people’s news feeds.

    TIP: Find local beauty and wellness groups on Facebook to share your news and post your offers in

    3. Make good use of your good reviews

      Encourage your customers (especially the loyal ones) to leave reviews on your Facebook page. You can then turn these reviews into testimonials to include on any print/email/online marketing that you might invest in.

      TIP: Keep an eye on your page for disgruntled customers—online complaints are a little tricky to handle.

      4. Reach out to your perfect potential customers—at a price

        If you have the budget for it, it’s certainly worth at least testing some paid advertising on your socials.

        There is an ever-growing array of things you can do with paid ads across Facebook and Instagram—direct people to your webstore, encourage sign ups to your email newsletter, urge customers to check availability… really, whatever your main business concerns are, you’ll find a way to prioritize them with paid advertising.

        Both platforms let you get hyper-specific when choosing your ad audience so you’re only targeting exactly who you want to attract to your salon.

        5. Everyone loves a good competition

          A final surefire way to utilize your online presence and get new clients for your business is to run competitions—on Facebook and Instagram. The best contests are the ones which encourage engagement by getting your followers to tag their friends and share your post.

          Here’s an example:

          “Whose hair do you admire? Just comment on this post tagging your two friends who have the most luscious locks and you could win a $25 gift voucher!”

          TIP: Check Facebook’s rules on promotions and competitions before posting anything.