Whether you like it or not, we’re all in sales! We have to market ourselves one way or another. If you’re a Beauty Professional everything you do is marketing. From the image you present to the world – how does your hair and make up look when you go out? – to the way your clients experience services with you – its all marketing. You may work in a salon or be a private salon owner in a suites environment. No matter, getting your name out there, getting repeat clients and new clients will keep your business and revenue growing!

If you can rely on your salon owner to market your services, good for you. If, however, you need to drum up your own business, as you probably know, social media is key. What follows are 10 simple Best Practices steps you can take to begin marketing yourself online today to grow your clientele.

1. Know what your brand stands for – what is it that is your mission/vision for your business and clients? Create your tagline. Use it on FB, Instagram, website, etc.
2. Create a Facebook Page and an Instagram Business Account for your business if you don’t already have one. You can have personal profiles and all, but do not mix the two. Dedicated accounts for your profession will boost your credibility, pictures of what you had for dinner last night will not!
3. A picture is worth a 1000 words as they say – only post good, quality images with the right lighting (Invest in a “ring light” for best results). Use a simple, consistent background for each photo.
4. Use hashtags, up to 30 per post. Best practices – use different groups of hashtags for different posts. Always include location hashtags. You can include your brand hashtag, too, of course.
5. Promote your retail and services vs. announcing you have available appointments. There are many free apps you can use to create professional looking posts like Canva. Run a retail promotion of 15% off to first 5 clients that purchase or promote a new service at a reduced rate for new clients, etc.
6. Post consistently. Yes, it’s hard, but if you are not growing your online presence, your new clients won’t be able to find you. Whether its 2x a week or daily, just stay consistent. Use a free “scheduler” like Buffer or Postcron to simplify and schedule up to 7 days of posts at a time.
7. Make sure you follow your clients on Instagram and/or friend them on Facebook and ask them to follow you in return.
8. Use DM (direct messaging) to reach out to someone who hasn’t been in for a while, to reach out to new people that like your posts and invite them to book an appointment.
9. Follow “influencers” those folks with many followers who are followed by the clientele you wish to have. It will give you visibility and expose you to others.
10. Make it easy for your clients and new clients to book an appointment. Add the link to your booking site on Facebook and Instagram. Add it in your DM when appropriate.

Gone are the days when handing out flyers or business cards made every difference. New stylists and savvy professionals grow their business from their kitchen table on the smartphone or tablet using these top 10 steps. Try it, you’ll be surprised how fun it is and will enjoy the thrill of generating your own new clientele from social media.

Juliette C. is the owner of Salon Studios Acworth and East Cobb and an avid social media fan. She enjoys spending time teaching her clients marketing skills to help them grow their businesses.