Instagram Marketing Tips for your Beauty Business
Love it or hate it, Instagram is one of the most important tools you can use in the independent beauty business. Thanks to its 1 billion active monthly users, Instagram is one of the best channels for promoting your business. Keep reading for a few ideas that will help take your beauty business to the next level:
1. Make Time for your “Content Clients”
When you review your calendar for the week, try to look for opportunities with clients that you know will be great to create content with. These can be clients that you know love being featured on your Instagram – and don’t mind the extra time to take photos – or big transformations you know will be happening with your services. Consider leaving an extra 10 minutes at the end of their appointment for some “content time” and don’t forget to take the before shot! Scheduling these opportunities ahead of time can help you plan ahead.
2. Create Educational Content
Image: Kristen Lumiere
Sharing educational content is a great way to help grow your Instagram page! People are more likely to follow an Instagram account if they find the content to be useful to them in some way. Consider sharing educational content that other beauty professionals may find helpful (pricing tips, retail tips, etc.) or even content that your clients may find helpful (products you recommend, aftercare tips, styling tutorials, etc.)
Creating video is a great option but if you don’t have time, you can also create simple text images. You don’t have to be a graphic designer to create beautiful text images for your feed. There are amazing apps you can use, such as Canva that have beautiful templates you can use to create educational content.
3. Show your Face
Putting yourself out there can be intimidating for a lot of people but it can really pay off! Showing your face on Instagram creates brand recognition. It is so important to offer your followers/potential clients the opportunity to know who you are and what makes you more than “just another stylist.” It also builds trust. When you continue to engage with your community and show how relatable you are, this turns into trust. Let your followers get to know the person behind the page (and the chair!). Here are some ideas on how to make this happen:
Show the action behind the scenes
Speak to the camera on stories at least once a week
Do a live video
Invest in a professional branding photoshoot
Participate in trending reels
4. Use Relevant Hashtags
Did you know that Hashtags, when used correctly, can help you get more reach and engagement for your posts? In fact, a post with at least one hashtag generates 12.6% more engagement than posts without a hashtag. Using the right hashtags can help you improve your posts’ engagement rates and get more followers. For example, users looking for a stylist to do hair extensions in Detroit are likely to search #hairextensions and #detroithairextensions. While the general #hairextensions hashtag might result in thousands of entries, #detroithairextensions is more specific, meaning you're more likely to be found – and even featured as one of the top posts for this hashtag. You can manually input your hashtags after your caption or you can use a hashtag generator to help you discover the most suitable tags for your post.
5. Make the Most of Stories
Instagram stories can be as fun and creative as you'd like, providing a brilliant way for your clients to get to know you and have an insight into your business. They can also build brand awareness, increase engagement and drive traffic to your booking site with the links feature.
Using Instagram Stories is a great way to share content that isn't quite ‘right' for your main Instagram grid – it only lasts 24 hours so doesn't need to be archived. You can even create polls on your Stories – engagement isn't only for the feed! To boost engagement even more, tag your stories with your location and key hashtags - this will increase the likelihood of being discovered by users who don't already follow you. Use the Highlights feature to create categories that stay on your profile, for example, you could have a ‘tutorials' collection that's always available for your followers to view.
6. Consistency is Key
Instagram rewards people who post regularly. Choose how frequently you want to post and stick to it. It's understandable if you're busy with client appointments but, thankfully, there are tools out there that can make regular posting much more achievable. Take advantage of tools like Later, Planoly and Buffer allow you to schedule posts and images ahead of time, making it great for social media planning.