Facebook is an inexpensive, simple and FUN way to market you or your salon and connect on a personal level with clients. Whether you’re just starting out on Facebook or already have a page, you’re sure to find a few nuggets of information here that will help you take your page to the next level and drive more business through your door.
Set Yourself Up For Success!
Create a Facebook “PAGE” for you or your salon to use for business, not a personal “PROFILE”. It encourages many more people to find and follow you, it’s more professional and you’ll have access to great statistics and applications for pages. Pages are easy to set up, simple to administer and help keep your work and personal life separate. Worth noting: Facebook has policies against using personal profiles for business purposes, and, as they’ve recently announced, you may wake up one day to find your “misclassified” profile was simply deleted. Helpful page links:
- Create a new Facebook page - As an individual stylist, you would want to select “Artist, Band or Public Figure” for your category and most likely your name for the page name. As a salon, you’ll want to choose “Local Business or Place.”
- Get tips for new page setups
- If you’re already using a profile (and not a page) for business, you CAN convert it to a page and all of your “friends” will become “fans”. You will lose the content and comments you have but you can download and repost the content – and it’s worth it in the long run.
Promotion Pays Off!
Once you have your page setup, let everyone know about it! Invite your friends to join (admins can do this), share it to your personal profile wall, and add the URL to your email signature and business cards. When you have a client in for a visit, mention it in person, too. They may just whip out their phone and follow you right then and there.
Brag A Bit!
It’s okay to brag a bit. You do beautiful work and you deserve to show it off! A look of the day or look of the week post would be perfect to show off a cut, color or style you’ve done and it might just nudge someone into making a change for themselves. With today’s cell camera quality, you can take great shots on the go and use fun programs like PicsArt (available for iPhone and Android) to create before/after collages, add fun filters and put text on the pics quickly and easily.
Leverage The Big Brands!
As a stylist or salon, you’re likely using products from a major manufacturer like Farouk Systems every day. If you’ve posted a look you’re particularly proud of, don’t hesitate to share it with the company that manufactured the products you used. Most brands would love to see what you are doing with their goods and many may share it with their own fans, giving YOU tons of additional exposure. To increase your chances of being shared from a brand, post to their page and include a sentence or two about what you did and what products of theirs you used.
Mix It Up!
Your page will primarily be filled with posts about your work, events and promotions, but from time to time, mix in other items you think might interest your fans, too. Fun fashion, new beauty finds, inspirational quotes and tasteful humor are always popular. Follow other pages that post the type of content you’re looking for and share a few now and then with your fans. Remember that images typically get the most response on Facebook! For fun content ideas, visit:
Always Say Something!
Speaking of sharing content from other pages, try to always add a comment when you do. Statistics show that posts shared with at least some text from you will often get more than twice the response than those that are shared without a comment. It can be something as simple as “Check out this gorgeous look!”
Consistency Is Key!
Try to build yourself a routine for posting. You don’t necessarily have to post every day but posting with some regularity will keep you in the mind of your fans and encourage them to look forward to the next post. Try to post at least three times a week, if you can’t do daily, but no more than three to five posts in a day. It can also be helpful to establish regularity with the types of content you post. for instance, maybe you post a morning inspiration and at lunch a photo of your work. Or, every Monday a new look of the week.
Timing Is *Almost* Everything!
When your primary audience is in a local area, you have the advantage of being able to time posts to go out when the majority of your fans are online. Many people check Facebook before work (6:30am-7:30am), during lunch (12:00pm-1:00pm) and after work (5:30-7:30). Weekends are also popular. You can use Facebook’s built-in scheduler to set your posts up in advance to release at a specific time. See what works best for you with a bit of trial.
Keep In Touch!
Nothing is more frustrating to someone reaching out to you, than being ignored. Don’t let messages on your fan page go unanswered. Try to check in daily, or at least every other day, to respond to any questions, comments or private messages that need follow up. Facebook has a mobile app for page admins now that you can download to help you out. It’s available for iPhone and Android in most areas.
Make It Yours!
Facebook has quite a few options to customize your page to really make it your own. Take advantage of all of them.
- Once you have twenty-five or more fans, be sure to set your custom URL (for example: facebook.com/farouksystems) in the edit page section. It’s cleaner, easier for fans to remember and easy for you to share on all your marketing materials.
- Use your cover image and profile photo wisely to reinforce your branding or to share your work – these two areas get viewed the most so make them count.
- Add some custom tabs to show off your other networks (Pinterest, Twitter), run contests, feature promotions or collect contact information from visitors.
There are so many options so explore and, above all, HAVE FUN!
P.S. A few quick don’ts:
DON’T GIVE UP! It takes time to build a good following of fans who are genuinely interested in what you do and engage with your posts. Quality over quantity is the rule – having 100 fans that are likely to do business with you is worth ten times more than 1,000 fans who don’t care about anything you post and will likely never use your services. Remember – if you build it WELL, they will come.
Don’t overpost! Space your posts out throughout the day and try to avoid too many – more than five posts a day is typically too much and could drive fans away.
Don’t link your Twitter and Facebook together. Ever! They are two very different mediums and auto-posting from one to the other looks messy and can discourage engagement.
Have questions, need advice or want more tips on how to do something on Facebook? Leave a comment and we’ll be happy to help!
