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The power of social media

Social media has become the number one marketing tool for every single brand, whether that’s your favourite burger place to your favourite high street clothing store. When it comes to being a hair or beauty pro – freelance or salon-based – social media offers your clients a window into your creations, how you work and how popular you are. Simply put, you cannot run a successful business in 2022 without having at least one social media account. Here we give you a brief tour through the most popular platforms right now.

Each social media platform has its merits for different reasons:

Instagram is known as the place to showcase your work – for instance, the Highlights section is the perfect area for you to show your menu, actual treatments and price information, as it’s always at the top of your account page. You can update any offers or last minute bookings on your Stories too, telling your clients what’s happening in real time. Just be sure to delete those Stories relating to availability so that people don’t keep sending you messages after you’ve already allocated the space!

While it’s encouraging more of its users to post videos, Instagram is most well-known as a still image platform, meaning it’s perfect if you just want to share pictures of your work, up to 10 images per post.

Top Tip: Ask your clients to tag you in their post when showcasing your work or writing a review. You can then share these to your stories with a thank you for sharing comment.

Facebook has long been known for its community groups and support; it’s a great place to ask questions of your peers. Facebook is the place to share your thoughts as well as your work. Set up a business page so that clients can message you, make bookings and also leave you a review. It’s also a great place for you to find people just like you, which is perfect if you’re looking for advice on anything from choosing the right manufacturer to how to deal with cancellations. By the way, Facebook has changed its name to Meta and it also owns Instagram, so it will always make anything you share on Instagram easily shareable on Facebook – and vice versa.

Top Tip: You can take bookings via Facebook making it easier to manage your bookings and messages all in one place. Simply add the tab to your page and follow the simple instructions to get started. Don’t forget to add in all of your services.

TikTok is the place to be if you love to have fun with your clients and challenge yourself and because it’s relatively new compared to the rest, it’s easier to stand out there. You can grow a social following very quickly on TikTok, because it’s an app that praises creativity, not perfection. Of course your work needs to be as perfect as possible, but you don’t need to be an amazing video editor to gain support on TikTok. Have fun and show your clients what you’re up to by posting a video that’s anything from 15 seconds long to three minutes, which is a great amount of time to share a tutorial with your audience.

Pinterest is really upping its game when it comes supporting small creative businesses and now offers video, meaning you can share mini tutorials on anything you create but also show the process of how you work. Focus on quality – make sure your work is well-lit and the colours are true to tone and then upload – you could get pinned by anyone in the world, but if you use keywords that refer to your location, you might just be spotted by your next client down the road.

YouTube is the place to be if you want to show your personality and build your brand for a global audience – you never know who might be watching! If you’re thinking about starting your own YouTube channel, check out this blog for some tips.

Whichever platform you choose, consistency is key. Stay on top of your message and always, always respond to anyone who contacts you. This doesn’t mean you have to post every single day and constantly be on your phone; instead you might want to commit to posting three times per week. Two of those times could be on Instagram – perhaps a shot of a look you created – and the third could be a more informative post on Facebook letting clients know about new services.

Remember: social media never sleeps, but you do! Set aside some time each month to batch some content. Even if you can only spare a couple of hours on a Sunday, use that time to plan and create what you want to share with your online audience. Catch up with your schedule for the next few weeks; if you know you’ve got some bridal clients coming up, think about sharing ideas ahead, doing polls on social, and of course, share the final looks after the event. Your clients love to see what you’re up to; just make sure you do it in a way that suits you.

If you need some creative support, Canva is a brilliant resource to create social posts on your desktop (you can opt for the free version or pay for Pro Canva), and you can also try Unfold and Tezza - perfect for creating content on your phone. There’s even help when it comes to scheduling, with apps like Planoly and Unum allowing you to arrange your feed in advance and set dates and times for uploading.