Jessica Turner If you’ve noticed sales of your services soar this year, it might be worth thanking social media.
Not just the effort you’ve put into your Instagram or Facebook channels, but the new wave of “celebrities” who inspire others to look their best, via their social media blasts.
Like Australian author Harper and Harley (below) these new celebs on the block have officially been coined “influencers”. Many enjoyed initial success through web-blogging or video-blogging. Now, most harness the photo-sharing app Instagram to share their news, pretty pictures and purchases with fans.
“From gracing covers of magazines to earning seven figure deals for a brand campaign, we’ve seen public fascination previously attached to a celebrity’s every movement making the switch to influencers,” says commentator Yelena Fairfax.
She is the editor of Husskie.com, a pioneer fashion, beauty and lifestyle news website placing influencers at the forefront.
According to Yelena, a true influencer not only boasts a six-figure-plus social media following but possesses a certain “spark” motivating consumers to covet their enviable style and/or overall “look”.
“The heightened demand for looking your best means people are investigating the ideal products out there in order to put their best foot forward,” She says.
“Therefore consumers are finding out more about the efficacious nature of professional treatments – leading them to head down this path. From social media to your spa, salon or clinic.”
We ask her insights on how aesthetics professionals can capitalise on this shift in buying habits and her tips for best practice B2B social media.
When should a business align themselves with an influencer and how do you choose the right fit?
Influencers have proven to be great mouthpieces for brands and places – a fact that has seen many companies redirect a lot of their marketing spend towards influencers.
If an influencer says a spa, salon or brand is great, people tend to trust what they say. Not only that, but influencers help build awareness about the brand or salon. Just one post from an influencer with a large following has been enough to catapult some beauty brands into the spotlight.
Finding the right fit comes through looking at the perfect combination of followers for the brief (e.g. what your budget allows!), a quality feed, an engaged following, and the right age market.
Say you’re from an anti-ageing brand, there’s no point in teaming up with a 16 year old beauty blogger just because she has 300,000 followers – none of those followers are going to be from your correct target market and will therefore not be purchasing your product.
As a spa, salon or clinic, how would you get on an influencer’s radar?
- While many influencers are after payment for posts these days, it never hurts to reach out to them.
- Rather than sending out a mass general email, I would recommend contacting each individually – personally introducing them to the spa/salon/clinic in a way that is tailored specially to them.
- A good way to get traction with an influencer is also by offering them a treatment. You never know, they might like their treatment so much they rave about it on their social media platforms and tell their fellow influencers all about it.
Are there any rules of engagement between spas, salons and clinics, and influencers?
- Similar rules of engagement should be adhered for influencers and traditional media.
- Send out an initial personalised email to them.
- If they don’t answer, try a follow-up email around 1.5 weeks later – this gives them adequate time to have checked all their incoming emails and doesn’t make it look like you are spamming them.
- Try and find a reason behind the follow-up, such as – “we’ve got an opening coming up” or “we thought this was perfect timing with summer almost here”.
- If you still don’t hear back, then they’re just not that into you and you’ll have to kiss that opportunity goodbye.
Why should spas, salons and clinics invest time and effort in making own social media presence great?
To generate awareness. While salons and professional treatments may previously have found it hard to get in front of the right people without paying for extensive media coverage – now they can easily get cut-through by directly targeting the consumers that matter via social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Even if a brand or salon has only small numbers following them, if that following is an engaged one – then it is a powerful one.
How can spas, salons and clinics take advantage of Instagram?
Instagram is a great way to talk directly to consumers – whether that be just to touch base for awareness purposes, to highlight a special deal or event that is happening in the salon, or to help gain further salon visitors. While Instagram is a great business tool – the consumer also needs to benefit from being a follower.
Remember to always keep your Instagram looking aesthetically pleasing while also on brand. There’s no point in doing countless pictures of girls in their bikini at the beach if you’re specialty is in facial aesthetics. Make sure the Instagram feed aligns with your brand/spa/salon, but at the same time looks beautiful and delivers effective messaging – driving consumers into the store.
Considering YouTube (that arguably makes makeup application more accessible to non-professionals), how can beauty industry professionals utilise the platform to their advantage?
There are two key ways professional makeup artists can take advantage of YouTube’s popularity …
- Learn the top beauty looks that are currently trending on YouTube. This can easily be found via https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=makeup. Once they’ve nailed how to create the look, inform consumers that a similar look can be created on them. While YouTubers make their how-to beauty videos look easy, consumers will often struggle to recreate the look – meaning they will need some professional help.
- Create a channel where the professional makeup artist recreates popular YouTube beauty looks on a model or themselves. These videos could also be used as short Instagram videos that help promote the artist or salon.
Any future predictions or cutting edge trends in social media that beauty industry professional should know?
Instagram is continuing to up its game all the time. The last few months has seen it deliver Instagram stories, links and boomerangs in stories, live videos etc – the list goes on. I think we will only see them deliver more groundbreaking innovations. What exactly these are, I can’t say – but I hope we will soon be able to click on a link in the comments to take the follower directly to a website, meaning spas can direct consumers to relevant sections of their website for each post.
Husskie.com, creates a one-stop hub where people can discover not only the fashion, beauty and lifestyle habits of influencers, but also take a look at life behind the camera (or iPhone).
