Seven steps to plan your salon’s social media content and blog posts for 2016

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Do you struggle to find content for your salon’s social media or to think of things to write on your blog? You’re not alone. It can be hard to find to a constant stream of ideas that will keep your clients engaged, catch the interest of potential new clients and project the right image of your salon. Like most aspects of your business, you’ll find creating content a lot easier if you have a plan in advance rather than working from week to week or, worse still, day-to-day. To help you, digital media consultant Kate Woods has put together seven steps to create a social media and blogging calendar. 1. Take a look at the celebrity events calendar: Red carpet events, movie premieres and popular TV shows can be used to comment on celebrity hair, create ‘get the looks’ or make product advice. If you know when they are, you can block out time for your content or messaging. 2. Scan the NHS Awareness weeks for events that are relevant to your clients: Everyone knows about the more famous causes like Breast Cancer Awareness month and Movember, but dates such as International Women’s Day, or Nutrition and Hydration Week could have as much potential for you to communicate with your clients. 3. Schedule in your offers and promotions: Make a decision about your promos for diary dates such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter; you should also factor in any seasonal promos or offers. It’s a good idea to speak to your product partners to find out what they have coming up. Don’t be afraid to speak about these in advance and during the promotion and remember you can use the same content more than once. 4. Consider your clients’ pain points: One of the most effective ways to create content is to think about the issues that your clients have and then produce content such as tips, videos or memes to solve them. You could get your team involved in this and you’ll be surprised by how many ideas you can come up with 5. Set your team objectives: Is January appraisals time? Then this is the time to set your team members a goal of getting one before and after each month (or more if you think it’s achievable). A picture tells a 1000 words so these can be your most effective content. 6. Decide upon a skeleton schedule for your content_ You could plan your schedule around popular hashtags such as #MondayMotivation #TuesdayTreat #WellnessWednesday. Your schedule doesn’t have to be rigid, but if you know that on a Monday you publish a quote and on a Thursday you publish a before and after it will give you some structure. 7. Book in some review time: Having a long term plan will make your social media and blog much easier to manage, but there needs to be some fluidity. There are plenty of tools to monitor how well your messages are doing. Spend a little time each month (or more frequently if you are able to) using them to look at the results. If something is working: do more of it; if something isn’t working: stop doing it – who has time to waste? Kate Woods is the founder of KOR Digital, a small (but perfectly formed) consultancy that provides digital solutions to businesses in the hair and beauty industries. For more information visit www.kordigital.co.uk or contact Kate on [email protected] or @KORDigital to discuss a bespoke content schedule for your salon.