Engaging Content Strategies for Hair Professionals

Ever wondered how to transform your hairstyling business using the power of social media? Join me, Emily Carden, on the Smart, Wealthy Stylist Podcast, where we kick off a thrilling social media experiment designed to grow our accounts together. This episode offers a treasure trove of strategies, starting with setting up a business Instagram page to monitor analytics and creating sticky content. Learn the secrets behind crafting captions that captivate and calls to action that convert. We'll also share insider tips on making engaging reels with trending sounds and hidden keywords to skyrocket your visibility, and emphasize the importance of a seamless booking process to enhance your online presence and draw in new clients.

But wait, there's more! We also delve into the need for a diversified social media strategy to reach a wider audience, including younger demographics. Discover how repurposing content across platforms like YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok can maximize your efficiency and attract the right followers. You'll gain insights into the benefits of batching content and using engagement metrics to fine-tune your approach. Tackling the common resistance many hairstylists have towards social media, I'll share practical advice and encouragement to help you harness its full potential. Tune in and unlock the secrets to becoming a smart, wealthy stylist capable of achieving anything you set your mind to!

Chapters

• 0:02 Maximizing Social Media for Hairstylists
• 11:05 Diversifying Social Media Strategy
• 16:51 Overcoming Resistance to Social Media

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Smart, Wealthy Stylist Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Carden, Over here. We're dedicated to helping hairstylists manage their finances, stay organized, healthy and manage their time and mental well-being. If you're a hairstylist looking for these things, then this is the podcast for you.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Together, we'll avoid burnout and step into being the smartest, wealthiest stylists that we can be. Hello, I'm so excited about this week. This week is going to be all about social media, and I know, as hairstylists, we have been catapulted into a whole part of the industry that I don't think any of us were really ready for. So you know now that social media is one of our main forms of, you know, advertising and putting ourselves out there and marketing and figuring out who we are as hairstylists and giving a perceived message to our clients, saying this is who we are. This is what I do. What do you think? You know it's it's become a pivotal moment and a pivotal tool in being a hairstylist. I don't think any of us anticipated this, but here we are. So the very first thing I want to do is I want to do an experiment with my own social media, and I thought it would be kind of fun if we could all do it together. So, um, for this social media experiment, I want to see how far we can grow our accounts together. Like, I took probably about six months off, um, and just kind of let everything quiet down, and then, now that I'm back in full force, I really want to experiment with this and see, by using the tools that I've learned, what we can do to grow our accounts. So, in the social media experiment, um, I'm going to be using, uh, certain caption structures, uh, real structures, carousel structures, calls to action for lead captures, and then also creating a freebie and exploring other forms of social media. So I started, um doing video with my podcast. That way I can put it on YouTube. And, um, I have a tripod set up to where I can also use it for Instagram or Facebook or whatever by creating reels. So there's so many different things that you can do while you're doing social media that you can repurpose. That way, you're making the very most of your time and you know, repurposing content is really a time saver and by saving a lot of your captions and your notes and stuff, you can go back and steal stuff from those captions.

Speaker 2: 2:48

So, um, for the social media experiment, I want to see what our analytics are right now and if you don't have a business Instagram page, I would highly suggest doing that just to kind of, um, make sure that your clients know who you are. You can always post some personal stuff on there showing who you are as a person. But having a separate business account is really important. That way, um, you can kind of keep things separated. And then it also helps because whenever you have a business page, you can separate it out and actually look at your analytics to know what reels did well, what posted well, you know which one was speaking to your ideal client the most, um, and then you can also go as far to see, if you can, um, did you get any clients from that reel or from that carousel or whatever?

Speaker 2: 3:39

So the very first thing I want to go over is caption structure. So whenever you make your captions, it's not good enough to just be like look at this bombshell blonde link in the DM to book, like the very first line. You want it to be a hook line, which is something really exciting. So like, if you did this really beautiful blonde transformation, you could put on there like and say you're really good at doing hair fast and it's really blonde and there's no damage, or whatever. So you could put on there this blonde bombshell only took me two hours, read below to see how I did it and then go into detail on how you did it, what products you're using, tag those manufacturers in that post and then at the end you would put um, click the link in my bio to book. Having your um, instagram and Facebook and all those things set up for success is really important too. So whenever people go to your bio, they see that little link, they click it and it takes them right to your booking page. Having everything streamlined the the more, the less clicking, the better. People are fickle when it comes to how long it takes them to go through the process of booking with you. So if you have your page set up to where you can literally just like, click the link and be done, that's even better. So with your caption structure, like I said, you want to hook, you want the details and then you want a direct instruction at the end on how they can book with you. Okay, so moving on to real structure.

Speaker 2: 5:13

So whenever you do reels, you create a video, and it can be a variety of things. You can actually be showing how you do something. You can be showing behind the scenes. You can be showing mixing color. You know, you know what reels are, you've watched them, you understand, you know the various types that you can do. But some neat little tricks is you can use a trending sound to help you get more visibility and on your trending sound it'll be have a little arrow going up and then you want to find one that has less than 10,000 uses but it is trending. That way you get on the front end of that. So if it does blow up, it really projects your video out there.

Speaker 2: 5:50

The second thing is you can hide keywords on the screen. So whenever you go to put the text on the screen, like you can type blonding, drag it down to the corner off the screen and then type balayage, then type Joplin hairstylist, then type you know all these different keywords about what your video is about and drag them down to the bottom and hide them. And then on the actual video the text should be something eye-catching. It's like your hook line, right, because people want to see that video and you only have like two seconds to make an impression on someone to want to watch the rest of your video. So if you have just a interesting title or something that really grabs their attention, like I said earlier, you know, for your caption structure you could say um, this blonding, this whole bonding session took only two hours or whatever. Whatever that is, people are going to go oh my gosh, I'm usually in my stylist chair for literally 45 minutes, so doing something like that really grabs their attention. And then you can reiterate that in the caption below on the reel itself.

Speaker 2: 6:52

And the next one's going to be carousel structure. It's the same thing, that first carousel post, which, when I say carousel, it's the same thing that first carousel post, which, when I say carousel, it's the one where it's just a bunch of pictures that you swipe through. So on that very first carousel post, you're going to want that to be your hook, your interesting thing, something that grabs their attention. Um, and then, as you go through, you would, um, do maybe a step-by-step tutorial, or you could do step-by-step how you accomplish something. So if you're also a hair educator, you could be putting on there. You know, if you're a color educator, you could be putting on there exactly how you did this to grow your social media, or you did this to reach this color result, or whatever. And then at the end, you're still going to want to do a call to action.

Speaker 2: 7:38

So, whether you're doing when in all of your captions, whether you're doing a reel, a carousel, anything, you want to make sure that you're giving the people what they want at the end of it so that they know what to do next, just leaving it open-ended saying, wow, isn't this a beautiful bombshell blonde? Let me know what you think. Like that's okay, but you really want to give them. Like, what is it that you're wanting from them? If you're an educator, are you wanting them to buy your course? If you're a hairstylist, are you wanting them to book an appointment with you? You know, whatever it is that you want them to do, you have to make it crystal clear at the end to say this is how you do this.

Speaker 2: 8:16

This is where you click and you can even go so far to use an app called mini chat. When you use that, you can put on there type, you know, a heart emoji. Or you can put on there type book and I'll send you the link to book and it will actually automatically send it right to their DMs, which is so nice, because if you're wanting more time with your family and less time, you know doing the business side of things, that's a fantastic option. To just say, hey, type book now and I'll send you the link to book and it literally sends it right into their inbox, so that's also a really cool option, but I can't say it clear enough. Make sure that your link in your bio everything is set up to make it super, super simple so you know at the end. If you're wanting people to book with you, just make sure you're saying, um, click the link in my bio to book, and when those people click that link, it should take them directly to your booking page. Or if you're an educator and you're wanting them to purchase your course or you're wanting them to learn more, you just make sure that you say click the link in my bio or type course and I'll send it directly to you. So setting up systems and making sure that everything is in place is really, really important.

Speaker 2: 9:35

Something else that's really great for lead captures and when I say lead captures, this is people's emails, this is people's contact information. This is so that whenever you can do email marketing, whenever you're running sales in your business, when you're doing retail products, when you're, you know, going to be hosting a class, or if you're going to be trying to find a model for a certain, or if you're going to be trying to find a model for a certain color class that you're fixing to do, having leads is an amazing tool. Email marketing is still one of the very best things that a business can do to grow their business. So, doing all of this, you can capture those leads and then further go from there and ramp up your business even more. So making sure that you have a way to reach those people and tell them this is what I'm about. This is what I'm doing. I want to show you the sale I'm doing. I wanna show you these product specials. I wanna show you my holiday color specials. Whatever it is, email marketing is still an awesome tool and whenever you have those leads, you can then offer them a freebie. People love free stuff. I don't think it lessens you as a stylist if you're offering something free, but you can give them a free curling tutorial, or you can give them, you know, free color analysis If they're a new client. You can do online booking consultations. There's so many different things that you can do for these people that they absolutely love and just already builds a level of trust with them whenever you do that.

Speaker 2: 11:05

So some other forms of social media that are really important. You know there's a lot of people that are getting sick of Instagram and there's a lot of people that aren't even on Facebook. You know a whole younger generation and there's a lot of people that aren't even on Facebook. You know a whole younger generation. So, making sure that you stay relevant and kind of um, going outside the traditional social media, like looking at YouTube and Pinterest and Tik TOK those three things are amazing and I know Tik TOK may potentially be shut down, but anything you're posting on Tik TOK I know TikTok may potentially be shut down, but anything you're posting on TikTok try to make them go back to your Instagram page or try to get them to go back to your YouTube page, but making sure that you have several different things in place.

Speaker 2: 11:48

And then, like I said, repurposing your content. Like right now I'm creating a video I'm recording on Instagram and I'm going to reuse all of this content and I'm creating a podcast. So my podcast will be posted to all my podcast platforms. My podcast video that I'm recording right now will be put onto YouTube and then I will repurpose tons of this Instagram content that I'm creating on my phone for Instagram and for TikTok. So all of this, all of this content will be reused and it just cuts down on creation time, because nobody has time, like I'm a full time mom, a full time, you know, hairstylist, and I'm also on the education side. So between all of those things, I mean it's really busy, and not only that, like I'm gardening and I'm training my yearling full. So I'm a busy girl, and the more that I can utilize a single moment of time, the better for me. So, um, but yeah, so, to wrap this up, I do want to try and see if we can all do this tick, this, uh, social media experiment together.

Speaker 2: 13:03

Um so step, we need to make sure that our Instagrams are set up to where they are easy for people to access. Do you have a clear booking link? Second, I want to make sure that you're using your caption structure. You know. Make sure you have your hook, the information and a clear call to action at the end. Real structure, it's the same thing. Make sure that you have an interesting title, hide what you're doing in the comments, or drag it down to the side and then have your engaging caption below and then carousel same thing. That very first picture is gonna be your hook, and then explanations after that, and then just make so. Having a clear call to action and a lead capture at the end is very important as well. Um, think about offering a freebie and then also making sure that you're using other forms of social media, not just Instagram.

Speaker 2: 13:57

Repurposing your content and sharing it on multiple platforms is an amazing thing to do. So, um, I hope this is a nice little short, quick to the point. Get you what you need to kind of get you started on using your social media to really work for you and not against you. I know it's hard to really set the time aside to do those things. Oh, and one other thing is batching content. Batching content is really a great tool because I can sit down in a two hour time span on a Sunday and, you know, really focus on making sure I have enough content to get what I need. You can kind of get a content planner and sort of just go okay, this week I'm going to do this, this and this. This week I'm going to do this, this and this, and then, when you have a vague outline of what you're wanting to do, then you can get all of your content that you need to get for the week, and it just gives you an opportunity to have, like, it all wrote down. It's a lot more organized and then, like I said, I would use multiple types of recordings. You can do YouTube, you can do Instagram, you can use multiple cameras and you know video things and all the things and get all of that content and then reuse it across all of the platforms.

Speaker 2: 15:13

So, making sure that you are maximizing your time reusing content really will, and like having that batch time, gives you so much more control and then you're not having to worry about posting all the time, because you've already had this batch content, you've scheduled it to post and then it just posts on its own. So, yes, you do have to set the time aside in like a batch time, but you don't have to just post every single day and get content every single day, because when I do that, I don't post. I don't want to just post every single day and get content every single day, because when I do that I don't post. I don't want to take the time to do that. So by batch creating content, it makes it much more appealing to me and I get it done and then it's over for the week and then your dream clients just start showing up. So, um, I'm excited to do this social media experiment and um, so, if you have a business page, I want you to go into your Instagram business page and look at the insights and then look and see where your engagement rates are, screenshot it and then at the end of 30 days, we'll go back in and screenshot it again and see if it's improved. So I'm excited to do this and let's see how it goes for all of us.

Speaker 2: 16:26

And um, next week is going to be all on time freedom, which I am all about maximizing my time. Um, I love my time behind the chair, but my family comes first, and so time freedom is my number one thing. I take eight weeks off a year and I'm still a six figure stylist, even though I take all that time off um to enjoy time with my family. So, anyway, that one. I'm very passionate about social media. I hate social media. I do not enjoy it, but I know it's a pivotal part of who I am as a hairstylist and what I can help you guys with, as well as a hairstylist educator. So, anyway, I will talk to you guys next week and um, I'm excited to dive into this. So I'll see you guys later.

Speaker 1: 17:13

Thank you for listening in today. If you have a burning question or a topic you want me to cover, leave a review and ask the question in the review. This is the best way to get your questions answered. Just remember you are a smart, wealthy stylist and you are capable of anything you set your mind to. I'll catch you later, Don't be a stranger.