One of the many questions that I get asked on a weekly basis is, what recommendations do you have for our social media presence? As easy as it may be to update our own personal social media profiles, when we are dealing with our own business profile this may become a difficult task. It is vital that businesses know how to connect with their clientele and use the different social platforms for their benefit. Here is a list of items that can get your business on the right track when it comes to social media.
Create a social media plan of attack
Some of you may say, “Now how do I do that?”. It’s really very simple. Write down your goals. What do you want to get out of your social media? More page followers, drive more walk-in traffic to your salon location, salon suite concept awareness, or expressing the benefits of salon suite life. Once you have done this step you can determine your top 3 goals.
Define your target audience
Who is going to see this? Who do you want to see this? Know your target audience and keep them in mind throughout this process. Always ask yourself, will my target audience respond to this post? How will they react? Is this something that they are interested in? Always appeal to your target audience.
Determine your competition
Who is your competition? Play investigative reporter and look at what your competition is doing. Follow their social media and write down some of the things that you feel are huge key point for them. From this research you will be able to start visualizing how you want your social media platform to look.
Social media content curation and research
This is the fun part! Once you have figured out how you want your social media to look and what vibe you want to give, then you can start curating content. Content should always be enticing so that your audience is craving more. If your salon location is eclectic and whimsical, your content should express that in all aspects of your social media. Keep your target audience in mind. Will my audience engage with this post?
Create a posting schedule
A good posting schedule should have a good mix of what your salon is all about keeping in mind your goals. A good mix of salon information, fun and humor, shared content – salon related content, and salon life. Give the audience information about your salon location and what services you provide, post funny images, share content from salon focused blogs or other images, and don’t forget to show how much fun you all have at Salons by JC. Show the audience the professional atmosphere of the salon. These factors are key points.
You can determine how many times a week you want to post and at what times. You can begin your posting schedule starting at two times to three times a week. Test out different times of the day to post and see what works best for you. Early morning posts 8am-9am, afternoon posts 2pm-4pm, and evening posts 5pm-7pm, tend to work best. If you think about it, we check our phones in the morning, mid afternoon and after work.
Many social media platforms have built in schedulers for business pages. Facebook provides each business page with a calendar to schedule your post at a later time and date. This is great to make sure you never miss a posting and helps with time management. Twitter provides Tweetdeck, which also allows you to schedule out posts in advance. Instagram does not have this feature since, Instagram is geared for “in the moment” posting.
Now you are ready for your first post!
