Ensure social media is part of your marketing mix for 2014
Published
18th Dec 2013
by bathamm
Salons must put social media centre-stage in their marketing strategy for 2014 if they are to remain viable, warns digital marketing specialist Valorie Reavis of Linkup Marketing.
“You can’t embrace social media half-heartedly. It must be woven in as part of your overall strategy so that all marketing and PR is supported on the social networks. Practically every salon client will be active on at least one social network and studies show that he or she will want to be part of that salon’s online community,” says Valorie. “The massive rise in activity across social networks is set to continue in and beyond 2014.”
Continues Valorie: “Success with social media is easy to measure through analytics but it’s not a one-shot to the bottom line like traditional marketing can be. It’s all about branding, and it makes the entire marketing mix much more effective.”
But she warns too many salons are still shying away from true immersion in social media due to the time and cost involved and advises salons to seek out a social media management system to help manage the process.
“There are a number of management systems available which you can upload content to and schedule a time to post, but salons should look for systems that will support their sector with content and the right sort of analytics.”
Valorie also recommends salons channel a wide variety of posts so they have appeal for all clients.
“Keep them brief, light and personal. Show them things that will generate an emotional response or talk about them or what is directly relevant to them to massage their ego. Pick info off the internet but also post personal stories and pictures from the salon,’ adds Valorie.
