The Barber's Guide to Social Media
This guide is an overview of how you and your barber business can be using social media. It will also help you get started with making an even greater impact in your business.
Social media has become a consistent and integral part of our lives. New features on multiple platforms have made sharing our lives and consuming content easier than ever, even facilitating engagement in real-time through live streaming. For those using social media professionally, the medium has arguably become the most cost-effective way to gain exposure for their business, maintain relationships with existing supporters and customers, and advertise their products or services to new audiences.
The use of hashtags across multiple social networks has become an extremely effective way to categorize content on the platforms and encourage online conversations about specific topics, events, and brands. In addition to those conversations, users also share their recommendations and opinions with their friends and followers.
In a few clicks, a user can share the page, profile, or website of a business or service with which they have had a good experience. With a single click, their friends and followers can check out their recommendation and make a decision to contact or visit the business. Those messages are likely being sent, and more importantly received, on a smartphone.
A standard feature on the mobile version most social networks is a click-to-call element, which means those shared recommendations can possibly become a phone call for new business in just a few taps.
Do you want to facilitate more new client referrals, not by asking for them, but through consistent, top-of- mind awareness?
Do you desire to have a well-developed presence on social media networks, but feel like you’re not up to speed on what that looks like currently?
This guide will hopefully be able to answer those questions and more!Why is Social Media Essential for Barbers & Men's Groomers?
Social media is a great way for you to stay connected to the community your barbershop is in, gain valuable exposure to prospective clients, market your business in an unobtrusive way, and stay in communication with friends and colleagues in the barber profession. Below are more detailed explanations of some of the top benefits of social media for barbers and men’s groomers.
Increased Exposure
Social media is an incredibly powerful and cost-efficient way to gain exposure for your brand and your business. Having a consistent presence on social media allows you to introduce various aspects of your business and service offerings without overwhelming your audience with information. This “multi-touch” approach to communicating information allows you to stay top-of-mind with your followers. The closer your barbershop name is to the forefront of someone’s memory, the easier it is for them to facilitate a referral, by sharing your post, your business’s social profile, or a link to your website.
Brand Yourself as an Important Resource
If you’re not going to talk about yourself or your business, then what are you going to talk about? When someone is considering getting a service, they likely want to know you are aware of what is happening in the industry, that you’re using current techniques, and that you are prepared to answer questions about trending topics related to both the service you are providing as well as general barber tips.
Before that time comes, however, they may be very interested in barber related information. So, what do you do? Balance more technical information with ways that the services you provide connect to things in popular culture, such as the latest fae trend or a new line of beard grooming products.
By sharing and discussing things that are both contemporary and related to your area of professional expertise, you will gain the attention of your audience – and keep it – by branding yourself as a relevant profession expert. You’re also likely to see your social profile gain followers from users visiting your page from a post shared with them.
Increased Website Traffic
As exposure of your barber business and brand increases and you gain a larger audience on social networks, you’ll likely see an up-tick in visitors to your website. As the process goes on, you’ll likely be able to move social followers who visit your website to an email list. This means you’ll have another touch point at which to nurture them closer to being a new client.
Additionally, increased website traffic can have a positive impact on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), meaning you could improve your standings in search engines. Upward movement in search results is vital in highly competitive locations or for highly competitive service offerings.
Becoming a Relatable Business
While there are many important reasons to maintain a social media presence for your barbershop, one of the lesser-known reasons is to achieve the goal of being seen as a “social business”. At the heart of all social networks is the functionality to communicate person-to-person. Social platforms try to facilitate that communication in ways that simulate in-person communication that would take place offline.
As a result, expectations of users on social networks have shifted to include the desire for businesses and brands to function in more personalized and relatable ways.
Developing your social profile pages into an informational resource and encouraging conversation and interaction with the content you post is what becoming a social business is all about.
Even simple interactions such as answering questions tweeted to your Twitter account can add up to making a significant impression over a relatively short period of time.
Referral Business Opportunities
Referral business is a current or former clients’ best gift to you because they have done all the hard work necessary to bring a new client to your barber. Not only do they already have a rapport built with the referral, they know what that person is looking for when it comes to paying for services. Even better, they know a qualified, men’s grooming that can meet the needs of the referral. YOU!
A Quick Overview of Popular Social Media Networks
This is a brief summary of the most popular social media networks that are available to you and your barber business. While there are many others outside of this list, these are the most critical for building a business following, increasing your brand awareness and educating people about the benefits of professional barber services.
For most people who participate in social networks, Facebook is often their primary platform. It has been around, in some form, since 2004 and has served as a model for many social media networks that have been developed since its inception. As of January 2018, Facebook officially reported it has 2.13 billion active monthly users.
While much could be said about Facebook, the key takeaway is that it should be the main focus of your social media efforts. The primary reason is the sheer number of people on the platform and Facebook’s stability as a social network, meaning it is unlikely the platform will shut down anytime in the foreseeable future.
Twitter allows users to post short messages, comprised of 140 characters or less and sometimes accompanied by a photo or image. The social network is a great place for sharing thoughts and opinions in a very concise form. You can tag other users in your tweets to engage with them almost in the same manner as exchanging text messages, only the communication is public. Your followers can also retweet, or share your tweets to their audiences, helping your content gain valuable exposure. Though Twitter’s new user growth has slowed down somewhat lately, the platform has around 330 million active monthly users.
Instagram shares a few features similar to Facebook. For example, when you open Instagram, you will see a feed of photos and images from people you follow, as well as captions that accompany those photos and images. Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and has integrated it into Facebook to share more media on both platforms at the click of a button. With Facebook owning and developing Instagram, the platform should be high on your priority list for increasing the exposure of your barbershop, as it has about 800 Million active monthly users. Currently, this is one of the most popular social media networks worldwide and continues to gain new users. This is the number one platform to share images of before and afters and capture your audiences attention for your barber business. Photos speak louder than words!
As of January 2018, LinkedIn has around 467 million users. Consider LinkedIn as a combined presentation of your professional resume and a Rolodex. Users have a personal profile, much like you would find on a business’s website. However, LinkedIn provides its users with a variety of ways to interact with other users, so the platform can be a great way to keep in touch with colleagues and acquaintances in the barber profession. LinkedIn also allows users to blog on the platform, so you can build authority for your business and brand with others in the profession through more long form content than would be typical on other social networks.
Snapchat
Snapchat is one of the newest platforms to emerge and has shown tremendous user growth especially with the younger generation, amassing over 187 Million daily active users. Snapchat has some unique features such as custom geofilters that provide a unique business or brand interaction with users. The platform has been commonly used by barber professionals to share “behind-the-scenes” style content or time sensitive service and product promotions on their stories. Consumption of this type of content is timely due to the fact that it expires after being watched or after 24 hours if on your story.
What's New in Social Media This Year?
Facebook is pushing a new video strategy called Watch, where users can create watchlists of videos based on their interests. This is a great way to leverage videos you may already have to expand your reach and client referrals. Facebook’s stories are also a great branding tool that can also be customized to groups or events. You can use them to provide incentives for booking a service during a certain time period or getting the word out about promotions.
Instagram introduced a feature called Instagram Stories, which lets you share multiple photos and/or videos in a slideshow format. You can also draw and add text to Instagram Stories, bringing more context and creativity to the media you generate through the feature. Instagram stories are also only visible for 24 hours and do not appear on your profile or in your feed. This time sensitive aspect of Instagram Stories creates incentive for followers to stay up to date with the most recent information shared by individuals, businesses, and brands they follow on Instagram.
Instagram Stories Highlights lets your brand showcase your best Stories and post them permanently on your Instagram profile. This feature is super valuable for brands because, unlike self-destructing Story content, Stories Highlights can be saved, reposted, and measured for long-term performance. You can organize your own Stories Highlights however you want before you post, whether it’s by theme, campaign, or date.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a mobile only app that allows users to send captioned photos and videos that display up to 10 seconds, and then expire after they are watched 1-2 times by a user’s followers. Snapchat recently introduced a feature called “on-demand geofilters” and made the feature available for use to small and medium-sized businesses and brands. A geofilter is a set of graphics or frame with the name of a place, business, or event that will display automatically when a Snapchat user takes a photo or video in a specific location during a pre-determined set of dates and times. Small to medium-sized businesses can pay Snapchat to create and distribute custom made geofilters, in turn leveraging the social media platform as a highly-customized marketing channel. This is a fun and effective way for businesses to engage with their existing customers and prospects in an entertaining and interactive way.
Twitter has officially rolled out their 280-character limit around the world. In its announcement, Twitter said that the character increase would allow people to express more, while still encouraging the importance of brevity.
Play around with new storytelling concepts that would have been formerly impossible under the 140 character limit—but don’t write more just because you can. Being clear and succinct is still the way to go on Twitter.How To Become More Confident Using Social Media?
According to Pew Research Center’s Social Media Fact Sheet, released in January 2017, 69 percent of all Americans use some form of social media. Within social media use, Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform, with 68 percent of Americans using it, followed by Instagram (35percent), Pinterest (29 percent), Snapchat (27 percent) and LinkedIn (25 percent).
These platforms provide a major way for people to connect—and this is particularly true in the barber profession, as it’s a rather solitary calling. Yes, you work with clients, but those interactions are supposed to be client-centered—which means not about you.
Interaction with colleagues is limited, even for those barber pros who work in a salon suite or are employees in a barbershop. Most men’s grooming pros barely have enough time to stretch and drink water between clients let alone have in-depth conversations with co-workers.
The image of colleagues standing around the water cooler and chatting doesn’t really exist in this field—but we all know that barber pros do find time to check their phones for posts to see how their friends are doing, and that helps them feel connected.
Social Strategy
Social media platforms aren’t limited to fostering your personal relationships. They can also be an effective business tool to promote your barbershop, generate new clientele, keep in contact with your current clients, drive people to your website, and enable you to quickly research almost anything.
Unfortunately, pitfalls also exist. It’s easy to wander down the social media rabbit hole and find yourself emerging hours later. Plus, there are technological restrictions and ethical considerations.
One of the first social media platforms was MySpace. That sounded like a great name, but social media has never been your space. You don’t own the space so you have limited control of how or when your content is seen. You have to follow the platform’s guidelines—and those guidelines are all different.
The solution is to use your social media sites to drive people to your website where you can control what and how content is viewed. Share links to your articles and blogs, and once people are there, offer them regular opportunities to join your email list for announcements, special offers and newsletters.
Online Privacy
Privacy is tenuous in the realm of social media. You have to be careful people don’t discover too much of your personal information and that you maintain client confidentiality.
The main way to secure your online privacy is to be cautious when posting. Only post things you would be comfortable having anyone (and everyone) know about you. The next step is to manage your privacy settings.
For instance, in Facebook, you can allow only friends to see certain posts. You can also create subgroups that can only see certain posts.
Think before you write—particularly if you have an emotional response. Once something is posted, you can’t take it back. Yes, you can remove it from your site, but there are other sites where it’s already been shared.
Do create a dedicated Facebook business page, because it will help establish boundaries. Keep in mind that even with a business page, many people will still search for you by your personal profile.
When I first set up my Facebook account, business pages didn’t exist. I set up a separate business page once that option was available and attempted to move my business friends to that page, but it wasn’t as effective as I would have liked. Now I have a personal Facebook page and a business page.
Sometimes there’s crossover of people on the lists because the focus of what gets shared is different. And there are times where I post the same thing on each page.
Some people don’t allow others to directly post on their Facebook pages. The only option is for those people to reply or comment on a post written by the page owner. While this certainly helps keep unwanted posts from your page, this isn’t a very social thing to do.
Conserve Confidentiality
It’s crucial to maintain client confidentiality. This is another aspect of online privacy. Many barber professionals use social media as an informal peer support group. This can be perilous, particularly when discussing client issues. You must make certain that nobody could figure out who you are talking about in your posts.
The most common confidentiality violations occur in relation to photos. For instance, you hold an open house for your business and take some great photos of the attendees. You write about the event and post the pictures.
You think you are maintaining confidentiality because you didn’t identify anyone by name. Unfortunately, someone else could share your photo and tag the person(s). The best solution is to get written permission whenever you take photos of clients or people attending your events.
Photo Protocol
Use appropriate photos for your cover photos on your personal and business page. You can add other photos on your personal sites—but it’s best to be conservative with the photos that you allow the public to see.
Only use photos or images that are yours or that you confirmed are royalty free. (Read the guidelines carefully, because royalty free doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t costs for using the photo or specific requirements for crediting the source.)
Get permission or give credit to the source of the original post whenever you share, re-tweet or re-pin a photo, video, post or meme.
Security Steps
Most cellphones and tablets have automatic geo-tagging (location information) loaded. While this is helpful for people trying to find your business location, it also provides a lot of information you might not want to share.
There are software applications that can read metadata to pinpoint the exact location where a picture is taken. In most instances, this isn’t a problem, but there are times when you want to protect your privacy.
For instance, let’s say you want to sell or even give away one of your possessions.
You take a photo of that item and post it on several social sites such as Craigslist, Freecycle and Letgo. If you don’t remove the geo-tagging information, you could be unwittingly providing your location to thieves.
The first step to removing this information is checking the privacy settings on your phone. I own an iPhone, and when I click on privacy and location services it gives me a list of options to activate or disable. I’ve set things like maps and compass to while using and have set everything else, such as camera and messages, to never status.
Another security option to consider if you don’t want to alert people to the fact that you aren’t home is to wait to post photos from events and meetings until you or someone else is at your house.
Be Safe
Also according to Pew, 77 percent of Facebook users visit the site daily (51 percent of Instagram users do so, as do 42 percent of Twitter followers). With so many Americans online and looking for information, education and connection, no barber pro can afford to ignore social media as a valuable venue for capturing clients.
Just be sure to implement social media safeguards, to protect your clients, your privacy—and your barbershop.Social Media Housekeeping: Are Your Accounts Up to Par?
Everyone needs a website and a social media presence. The secret, however, is to do it well with the least amount of management and time spent. With a little guidance and some suggested social media rules, you can get back to the career that you are passionate about.
When is the last time that you paid close attention to your social media efforts beyond occasional Facebook and Twitter posts? When was the last time you updated your website? The months pass, with daily postings of blogs, photos and videos, and we lose sight of some of the basic housekeeping that should be done to keep our social media pages and website fresh.
Social media and websites may be fun and easily accessible, but, like the job itself, to be successful takes work, time and money. Spring is the perfect time to drill down deep into your brand image and social media strategy, to cast off what’s not working and grow what is.
General Housekeeping Tips
There are some general best practices that should be executed on an annual basis in regards to your web presence in addition to your basic weekly and monthly maintenance.
Do I Need This Account?
Look at all of your social media accounts, examine each one and ask yourself, “Do I need this account?” Nothing comes across as more unprofessional than someone visiting your Twitter feed or Facebook page and seeing that the last time you posted anything was years ago. While it might not seem like it, a general lack of activity sends the message that your business isn’t important.
How Relevant Are The Channels to Your Business?
Not all social media platforms work for all businesses, so there is no need to maintain accounts that fail to bring in clients. Ask your clients to follow you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest for special incentives and promotions. This way, you’ll be able to see just which social media platforms work best for your business. Google Analytics is also a great way to measure your social media impact.
Align your social media channels to your marketing goals and leverage the opportunity within each channel. For example, use Facebook advertising or push promotions through Twitter, the reach is worth more than the minimal investment.
Pick two or three social media platforms and commit to posting on them on a regular basis. Whether it is posting four times a day on Twitter, twice daily on Facebook or three times a week on Instagram—make it happen.
If you find that you do not have the time, it may be best to either hire someone, or look into free social media scheduling services such as HootSuite or Buffer. Ultimately, it is consistency that you are striving to achieve.
Action Steps
Change Your Passwords: Best practice is that you change your social media passwords on an annual basis. It protects your accounts from hackers. Also consider implementing a password management solution to store, distribute and manage your organization’s secrets. These systems allow you and your team to share passwords without making them visible.
Update Information: Visit your social media channels and make sure that all of your company information is correct. Your hours of operation, phone, email and social media links can easily become outdated. Be sure to update your company profiles with newer information.
Image Refresh: Change your company pictures and profile descriptions. Don’t let your image look dated and stale, keep things fresh and current with updated images. Change backgrounds and profile pictures as well as delete images from social media accounts that are old and no longer relevant.
Consistency: All of your social media channels should look and feel the same; your logos, colors and images should all be consistent with one another.
Administrative: Who has access to your accounts? Look at all the administrative access and permission to your accounts in order to best protect your business. Remove and edit as needed.
Your website, it isn’t just a website. Your website is a multifaceted asset of your company and should be treated as such. Re-evaluate your website regularly to be sure it is serving your business in the best way possible and that it matches your style and level of service.
Your website speaks volumes about your business. It either says, Hey, look, we take so much pride in our business that we have crafted this wonderful looking site for our customers! or it screams, I let my 11-year old nephew design my site—good luck finding anything!
Your Site is More Than a Landing Page
Your website is an off-hours customer service center that provides answers to product-related questions 24 hours a day. It is also an extension of your marketing team and offers a convenient place to display your service advertisements, all with the luxury of not having to having anything printed.
Your website is also your public relations department and informs customers of upcoming events and new services. Ultimately, your website is what you make of it; it does what you want it to do.
A huge advantage to having a website is that we can integrate it with social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram—allowing us to reach out to our customers, clients, fans, friends and family in real time. They say the most valuable asset to a business is word-of-mouth, and when you have 3,000 fans sharing your information across the globe, what better advertisement can you have?
Social Media Rules and Tools of The Trade
A quick internet search can provide you with turnkey programs, software and apps that may help you make your operations run smoothly without having to be a high-tech guru or programmer. There are a myriad of low-cost, low-maintenance products that take pressure off you.
• Appointment/Scheduling Programs
• On Demand Barber Services
• Web Design, Hosting
• Social Media Online Marketing Coaches
Arguably, one of the best aspects that the internet and social media can offer business owners is that it has leveled the playing field when it comes to our competition. With a well-designed website, consistent messaging and following the proper social media rules and tools, you can stand out in your market as a thought leader and a preferred barber professional.
However, maintaining your brand online is a continuous effort that requires time and energy. After following our tips, if you do not have time or ability to keep up your website and social media accounts, consider reaching out to a specialist who can help. It never hurts to collaborate with a professional. Your goal is to focus on what you do best—taking care of your clients.Failing at Social Media? 5 Steps to Turn it Around
When it comes to building a clientele, social media is one of the most effective ways to both acquire and retain customers; yet, as a social media professional serving the barber industry, I’ve come to the realization that most barber pros are failing with their social media strategy.
There is an infinite amount of resources on the internet on social media marketing tips and tactics to better reach potential business. The fact of the matter is, many of those articles, while resourceful, do not work in all industries.
Social media should not be overlooked as a marketing strategy; however, randomly implementing strategies and tactics without an actual plan will provide few to no results.
Here are five mistakes barber professionals consistently make with their social media strategy and how to fix them.
Mistake #1
It’s tempting, isn’t it? There are at least five major social media platforms, all boasting massive amounts of daily users and engagement. It would make sense to be on all of these platforms in order to gain maximum exposure, right?
Not exactly. Social media can be exhausting. Having a daily strategy for one platform takes a significant amount of work, so attempting to spread your energy across every platform will set you up for failure.
The solution: You need to first identify which social media platform(s) your ideal customer spends the most time on. This should be your biggest priority for your social media marketing strategy. Only once you’ve mastered this platform and have an automated, successful strategy is it appropriate to start marketing on a new platform.
Here are some helpful demographics pertaining to platforms, according to sproutsocial.com:
- • Facebook: By far the largest user-based platform and most sophisticated ad platform. If you’re beginning to dabble in social media marketing, Facebook is a no-brainer.
- •If your main demographic is female, Pinterest is absolutely crucial to your marketing success, as 42 percent of women who are online use Pinterest, while 34 percent of total Pinterest users earn more than $75,000 annually.
- •If you’re interested in marketing to a younger professional demographic, Instagram boasts a user base of 53 percent 18 to 29-year-olds.
- •Snapchat is one of the newest social networks, but its popularity has already surpassed Twitter’s active daily users. There’s isn’t much on demographics yet, but it seems the platform is dominated by females, at 70 percent, and 75 percent of total users are younger than 25 years old.
Mistake #2: You're Selling Rather Than Providing Value
“Book Your Appointment Now!” “25% Off Your Next Service!” “Gift Certificates for the Holidays Now Available!” Most barber pros’ social media posts are riddled with sales and specials such as these. They don’t work—at least, not at first. More than likely, these types of posts are immediately skipped over by your social media fan base.
Are you familiar with the term jab, jab, jab, right hook? This phrase was coined by entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, who applied boxing terminology to social media strategy.
The theory behind jab, jab, jab, right hook for social media marketing is: Before you can ask your fan base for the right hook, or purchase your product or service, you need to repeatedly jab fans with either educational or authoritative content that delivers pure value for them. Only once you’ve thrown enough jabs can you ask for the right hook.
The Solution: You need to post 10 valuable or entertaining social media posts before you post one sales-or-business related post. This ensures that you’re actually engaging with your fan base before asking for a sale.
You wouldn’t join into a conversation at a party and immediately ask the other individuals to buy your product, would you? So, how is social media any different?
Mistake #3: Not Utilizing Social Media Ads
1 to 2 percent: That is the average percentage of a Facebook page’s fan base that views an organic post. If your Facebook fan page has 1,000 likes, on average, only 10 people will see your post.
Pretty discouraging, right?
Most social media platforms now host complex algorithms that limit the number of posts a user will see within his or her newsfeed. This algorithm is more focused on user-to-user engagement vs. user-to-business relationship. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, the algorithm is more than likely going to show family and friends’ posts, tweets and images as a priority over a business post.
The Solution: Facebook and Instagram have one of the most sophisticated ad-targeting platforms ever created. The granularity of interest and demographic targeting that allows you to advertise your most recent article on your website, e-book you’ve created, or sale you’re running is right at your fingertips.
Worried about the cost? You shouldn’t be. Social media advertising is one of the cheapest ad buys in the market that allows you to deliver your brand message.
Here are some examples of effective social media advertising:
- •Utilize Facebook Advertising and target individuals who like other babershop-and-spa businesses in your location with a one-to-two-minute video introducing your business.
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- •Enable Facebook Live stream for a tour of your business or an on-site barber service. Then promote this post with a Facebook Ad targeting individuals who like barbershop-and-spa businesses in your area.
- •Create an article on “What you should expect to pay for a fade” and then launch a paid Twitter ad that targets all of the individuals who follow surrounding barbershop-or-spa businesses in your area.
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- •Utilize a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram advertising platform to promote your Snapchat account, where you post a question-and-answer session about your business services.
Mistake #4: Not Utilizing Video
The amount of video being consumed on a daily basis is staggering. Snapchat has over 8 billion views every day. While your social media strategy should be a healthy mix of images and text, video should not be ignored. From Facebook Live to Snapchat, Periscope and Instagram 60-second videos—social media platforms are not only placing more of an emphasis on video, video is receiving much more engagement as well.
The Solution: A social media video strategy does not have to be complicated. More than likely, you can utilize the camera on your smartphone and upload directly to your accounts.
Mistake #5: Expecting Quick Results or Sales
Like any marketing strategy, there is no silver bullet. Social media is meant to be a way to connect and engage with others, so expecting to dive into a new platform and immediately generate a huge amount of sales is unrealistic.
Social media marketing takes time, effort, measurement and realistic goals.
The solution: The most effective way to gain awareness on social media is to have a posting schedule. This not only defines the specific time of day you will post, but also what types of posts you put up at each time.
Start small with your posting schedule, and gradually increase it when you have the time, experience and energy to do so.
The best way to approach scheduling social media across your platforms is with a free online tool. Buffer is one of the top social scheduling platforms that not only allows you to schedule posts for free, but also has detailed analytics for a reasonable subscription price, which will tell you what posts are most popular.
Seize The Opportunity
Social media presents itself as a massive marketing opportunity for barber pros to book appointments, acquire new clients and potentially turn themselves into a brand. While there are many successful stories of this happening, there are far more stories of failure.
Similar to starting your own barbershop or mobile barber business, when you launch social media marketing, you need to plan your strategy, have measurable and realistic goals—and reconfigure if your original plan does not provide immediate results.Make Your Social Media Fans LOVE You
If you’re like many barber professionals, you already use social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest, to market your barbershop. How effective is your marketing via these channels? Here are some symptoms your social strategy may be in need of an overhaul:
You look at the pages of other barbershops in your area and see hundreds, maybe thousands, of followers, and you only have a few dozen;
• You post to social media often, but you rarely get many comments, likes or shares;
• You hardly ever post to social media.
• If your barbershop’s social media presence isn’t doing much for your business, here’s how you can help turn things around
Use Social Tools Appropriately
You can share links to your own blog posts across all your social media channels, as long as you tailor your posts to work well on each network. For example, you would add an eye-catching, appropriately sized photo before posting to Pinterest or Instagram.
Different networks also have different customs surrounding details such as how often to post or whether to include hashtags in posts. Spend some time observing how people in your audience use the different sites where you have pages for your barbershop, and act accordingly.
Be Social, Not Sales-y
Think about your own preferences as a consumer. Would you prefer for someone to take an interest in you—or skip right to the sales pitch?
Sales and marketing is like a dance; as the salesperson you move to the left in a tango and hope your partners, potential clients, follow. The best way to entice them to follow your lead is to get to know them as individuals.
Take some time to find out what kinds of hobbies or activities your clients enjoy. What are they interested in, and how can you use those interests to connect with them? For instance, if many of your clients are senior citizens, topics they think about might include health insurance, pensions, vacation homes or grandchildren. Posting and talking about common interests with your barber clients helps you engage with them on a personal level. You can also consider specific health issues they might face, such as hair loss and build some posts around the topic of ways your barber services might be able to help.
Interact
Don’t just post to social media and move on. Once you post your latest and greatest tweet or blog, get ready to interact with your fans and followers. As you receive feedback in the form of likes, re-tweets or comments from fans, talk to them and have fun with them—show that you are a human being and not a bot.
For example, say you post a link to an article about island paradise vacation homes on Facebook, and an audience member replies and says, “I’m moving there next week.” Comment back. Or maybe you post an article about how monthly scalp treatment can help increase blood flow and promote hair growth, and a potential client asks a question. Post a reply.
In both cases, you have connected with your audience, and in the second possibly even gained a new future client. When other users see you are an active participant on social media, they will be more likely to jump into the conversation and engage with your content by liking and sharing it.
Measure Your Success
Finally, you want to measure your social engagement efforts. Determine if you met the social media goals you set. Were you able to gain more fans on Facebook? Did you post more often (or less often, with higher quality in mind)? Did you create original content? Did you connect with fans? Note your number of likes, shares, followers or fans, and any other numbers you can use to compare your pages’ performance now and in the future. After evaluating, establish goals for the next period.
FEEL THE LOVE
You can gauge how well you are doing on social media by analyzing many factors, but the most important thing to remember about this method of marketing is that it is about building relationships—not constantly promoting yourself and your barbershop.
By using social media to build a relationship with your audience, you strengthen their trust in you, as well as their sense that you are an expert in the field of men’s grooming who can help them, and increase the likelihood they will eventually become clients.
Thousands of brands compete every second of every day for your clients’ and potential clients’ attention; make your barbershop stand out by using social media to strengthen and deepen those relationships, and connect with your clientele on a personal level. It might take time, but your efforts will convert to more sales in the long run.