Offline Social Media: How a Hair Salon gets More Likes and Customers on Facebook

I recently spotted a local beauty salon called Wild Style Salon that is doing a great job with their offline social media marketing. They are on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Many small businesses get overwhelmed thinking of how to market their business on social sites and keep up with the demand to post regularly. Retail stores who already have a visual business have an advantage. Just getting customers to like you on Facebook can have a positive affect on sales, even if you don’t do a lot more than that. My guess is that the positive reviews from customers who go to Facebook and then leave a positive review are what drive the most referrals. While their engagement, posting and website aren’t very strong socially (infrequent posts, low engagement, very few sharing buttons), they have done a great job optimizing their retail space for social media. Your goal as a retail business is to: 1. Create a great business. 2. Get customers through the door. 3. Share your social profile addresses with your customers through displays or posters. When your customers talk about you online that leads to more customers coming in. You can do several things to encourage people to find and follow you (and hopefully leave stellar reviews). Here are some examples: Signage: their sidewalk sign was the first place I noticed their marketing. The sign refers to the popular selfie trend (we all want to look good for our smartphone camera, right?) and has a call to action. Salons are perfect for people who take selfies because every woman feels great after getting a haircut and blowout. I also like how they have their phone number above their door and that the door says “Walk-ins Welcome” because that’s just what I did. They could even add a door cling on the outside asking people to follow them on Facebook. The sign (which got me in the door) reads, “improve your selfies come on in today”: selfies-salon They told me Facebook sends them the most business, so they have done things to encourage people to like them. Every stylist has a flyer on their mirror inviting customers to like the company Facebook page. There is also a sign on the front desk. To incentivize people to like them on Facebook they give away a free gift – a small gift bag with product samples. Facebook-like-collage.jpg This is the first locally-owned business I’ve seen capitalize on Instagram, the fastest growing social network. Here’s a picture of their display that has URLs to the staff and salon Instagram accounts: Instagram-follow-us One way they could increase posts and showcase their good looks better is to post their customer or staff’s Instagram photos on Facebook like Starbucks does in the example I linked to. As is common, the salon’s receptionist manages most of their social media, which, though biased, I think is a missed opportunity. If they’re doing this well at their physical location, think what they could do if their website was optimized for social and they had someone dedicated to regularly posting quality content and engaging with people. I’m certain that would increase bookings not only for hair cuts and product but also for their other products such as higher end hair services and spa treatments. My small experiment of one showed that most of my Facebook followers have no idea what a Brazilian Blowout is, but once I discovered it, I’ve been a fan. Just one customer adding this service and the associated products you need could easily bring their yearly spend up more than a thousand dollars. For more social media marketing tips you can do to improve your online presence, check out our presentation featuring very cute kitties. Have you seen any great examples of a local business marketing their Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram accounts offline? Please share! 

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