Five dos and don'ts of online promotion

From knowing how to choose the right hashtags, to advice on getting your work noticed online and avoiding the pitfalls of social media, co-founder of networking app Creative Connections Bryony Gordon, provides her top tips on Online promotion: DO… Embrace social media! As well as showcasing your work on your website, use platforms such as Instagram. This could ensure that your latest collections and before and after client transformations get seen not just by locals, but potentially by thousands of customers, creatives, brands and industry experts around the world. Remember the ‘social’ element of social media. As well as posting about your own work, acknowledge other people’s too by commenting and liking. While it’s not about giving to receive, that small act of appreciation may encourage them to look at your feed and could also lead to future collaborations. Use relevant hashtags when posting e.g. #hairstylist #sessionstylist #hairinspo. Like-minded people will use these to search for related posts. Fill it with as many tags as you can for optimized views and to enhance the chance of being noticed. Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags in one post, whereas you only have 140 characters with Twitter, so include what you can. Look for other digital options which give you a platform to share your creations far and wide. The more you showcase your work, the more you will be seen and the more people will want to collaborate with you. Spell-check and triple-check your comments before posting to ensure that your grammar and English are correct. Whilst social media is a relaxed environment, spelling mistakes can be distracting and if you’re trying to successfully promote yourself online, it’s best to project a professional image at all times. DON’T… Get carried away and clog up your followers’ feeds with constant images and posts. Try to leave at least a half hour to an hour gap between posts if you’re planning to engage multiple times each day. Forget to tag in brands that you’ve used to create a look e.g #ghd or @KentBrushes as well as magazines such as @hji and industry apps that repost e.g. #CreativeConnections. By tagging them, not only will they get to see your work, they may also retweet/share your post to their network of followers, potentially spreading your work across the globe. It could also put you on their radar if they’re looking for hairdressers to collaborate with or represent them in the future. Overshare Keep your work profiles professional. A brand searching for an ambassador doesn’t want to see photos of a drunken night out in your feed. If you can’t resist sharing these posts, create a separate personal profile and make it private so only your friends can view it. For your work accounts, remember if you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing your posts on a giant billboard, don’t hit ‘send’! Edit other people’s work. Reposting someone’s work is a great social act however as artists, hairdressers will have presented their images in a way that reflects their vision. Thus, don’t alter their creations by using extra Instagram filters for example. And remember to fully credit the team, as they all deserve recognition. Forget to get involved and have fun! Whether you use social media or creative networking apps to showcase your work and connect with other hairdressers, make-up artists and photographers, get involved. With the digital age presenting so many exciting options for hairdressers to be seen and celebrated online, that opportunity of a lifetime could be just a tweet or a few clicks away!