It seems as though Instagram “hacks” to grow your following change as soon as you finally get the hang of them. Social media is a huge investment of your time as a salon owner, and you want to make sure you’re not wasting time on practices that you won’t see any return of investment on. In this blog post, we’re going to cover a few common Instagram hacks that WON’T benefit your salon’s page (and solutions that WILL).
MISTAKE #1- Blindly following mass amounts of people and buying followers.
Follower count on Instagram seems important, but the number doesn’t really matter if those follows don’t translate into actual customers of your salon. Instead of going on a random following spree, establish what your ideal client looks like. When following people in your city, make sure they possess the qualities that your ideal client would. This way, your page is more likely to spark their interest and encourage them following you back and in time, become a paying customer at your salon!
Long gone are the days of mass followings and unfollowing, and ESPECIALLY purchasing followers, and quality of followers trumps quantity. As with anything else with digital marketing, execute a strategy with purpose if you expect to see a return on your investment of time!
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MISTAKE #2- Posting too often and without purpose.
Once again, the rule of quality over quantity comes into play. If you are posting daily or multiple times a day with filler content that serves no purpose (entertaining, inspirational, educational or promotional), you may consider changing up your strategy. Instead of focusing on posting constantly, concentrate on posting consistently. Consistent, quality content will out perform constant, half thought out posts any day of the week. Speaking of low quality content, let’s dive into our next mistake.
MISTAKE #3- Posting poor quality content and reposting too often.
We tie these two together because they often go hand in hand. Sometimes when you screenshot someone else’s post, the quality of the photo may be affected. Not only this, but often reposts neglect to credit the original creator, which is a big social media no-no! Instead of taking screenshots to repost, consider sharing the original post in your stories. For original content, you also want to make sure you’re putting out high quality, easily digestible, scroll stopping posts. Make sure photos are clear and visually appealing and that any font used is easy to read. Throw together a great caption and you’ve got a successful post ready to go!
MISTAKE #4- Using too many irrelevant hash tags.
The evolution of hash tags is all over the map; first it was tag as many #’s as possible, whether they were relevant or not.
Then there was the debate of whether to put hashtags in the caption, or in the comments. It’s hard to keep up!
We’re going to make things easier for you, ditch majority of your hashtags and select a few specifically suited to your photo. Instead of posing a bunch of random hashtags, choose 3-5 specific hashtags that you predict your ideal client would search. Include your area, your specialties, and anything specific keywords that will land you on local search results.
CONCLUSION
If you’re still on any of these Instagram “hacks” to grow your salon’s page, it’s time for an upgrade! These are the key things you should takeaway from this post:
1. Don’t blindly follow mass groups of people, strategically follow people who fall under your ideal client umbrella.
2. Don’t thoughtlessly post just to post regularly, post with purpose.
3. Don’t slack on quality- post high quality pictures and repost by sharing in stories.
4. Lay off the unnecessary hashtags and post 3-5 specific, strategically picked hashtags.
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‘Til next time,
Your Team at Salon S.O.S