Social Media Versus An Online Presence - A Salon Owners Guide
Getting your salon online is not only smart business, it's essential if you want to compete in today's marketplace. If you are still working off a simple Facebook page as your only online presence, here are some tips to make that page work harder for you (as well as very good reasons to move up to your own website).
- Customise your URL
Step one in making sure that you are actually searchable as a Facebook business page is customising your URL. Facebook doesn't hand these out on a plate, you have to manually change the URL name, so get in there and do it now. Make it as simple and relevant to your business name and/or location or services as possible so that you can easily be found by a search engine.
- Fill in Everything
Your options to really shout about your identity, services available and to highlight the quality of your hair and beauty salon are already limited by a simple Facebook page, so you need to make sure it's working its hardest for you.
Fill in the About Us section with your most honed elevator pitch, be thorough in the information that you share, and don't forget to include all of your contact details. Ideally, your Facebook page should be a funnel for getting the attention of all the Facebook users and directing them to your own, beautiful and functioning website - this is where you can start to turn likes into customers.
But if you still haven't got your website up and running, you need to use every opportunity on this one page to be as slick and customer-focused as you can be. Set up numerous tabs, include a thorough list of salon services and update your feed with fresh posts and information as often as you can.
- Pin Important Posts
If you've got special offers that you want your customers to know about, or have an exclusive offering that sets you apart from the competition, pin that post to the top of your page so that it doesn't get lost in your feed. This means that whenever someone new or returning comes to your Facebook page, it's the first piece of information that they see.
Make sure it's kept current; there's nothing worse than finding a business page with a special offer up front and centre that expired six months ago. Your customers will see this as lazy and inactive, and your salon will lose credibility.
- Have a Call to Action
Don't forget what the purpose of all your hard work on social media is: turning the online browser into a customer. Populate your page with clear calls to action and make it easy for people to get in touch. Ideally, a call to action on any social media platform should be a concerted drive towards your own salon website - Facebook is essentially a marketing tool that should serve your website and push all business directly to your own online presence. If you don't yet have a website (why not?), be sure to include links to other social media pages.
- Make Your Brand Clear
This can be a tricky one since Facebook pages do have their limitations when it comes to branding. You're already at a disadvantage when it comes to being individual, since you have the same template and fascia as every other Facebook business page, but if you're careful and selective about the images you post, especially those that you set as your profile and header, you can make sure they say as much about your identity as possible.
Having your own Facebook page is a good place to start, but really, having a bespoke website for your own business is a crucial tool to getting more customers. Even if you feel you don't have the technical knowhow, budget to outlay at the beginning or time to maintain and market it effectively, it can be done, and can be much cheaper than you might think.
Digital Salon Group can help you audit your web presence for free and create your own simple website with ongoing support, so your salon can avail of all the benefits of having a strong online presence that brings in more customers, without having any of the hassles.
