THOUGHT PROCESS
Social media in general – and Facebook specifically – provides Salon Suite owners with a low-cost marketing channel able to help them attract, engage and retain clients.
ACTION STEPS
Master the right technique and adopt a strategy that turns your time spent on social media into effective, return-on-investment producing effort.
Yes, time is money and social media can take up a lot of time. But it’s also true that no social media platform has more potential to help you grow than Facebook. Here’s why:
- 66 percent of all adults in the U.S. use Facebook; 80% of internet-using adults in the U.S. use Facebook.
- Millennials aged 25-34 are the highest age demographic, making up 30% of users (Emarketer 2012)
- 83% of all females use Facebook; 75% of all males use Facebook (sproutsocial.com)
- As of June 2017, there were 2 Billion active Facebook users, compared to 1.5 Billion YouTube, 700 Million Instagram, 328 Million Twitter and 255 Million Snapchat active users (sproutsocial.com)
And while you may have heard that fewer young people are using Facebook, the real numbers might surprise you. When it comes to Americans who are online:
- 88% of 18-29 year olds use Facebook
- 84% of 30-49 year olds use Facebook
- 72% of 50-64 year olds use Facebook
- 62% of those 65 and up use Facebook
That stat alone should convince you that Facebook is a viable marketing channel for reaching your target audience. 8 out of 10 is a lot. Unless your target market doesn’t include internet users, you can be confident that there are people who fit your “ideal client type” persona in your area that you can reach with effective Facebook marketing.
Suite Success Secret #81: 3 Sharing Musts Using Facebook to Grow a Salon Business
Let’s take a closer look at four sharing principles that can help you win on Facebook, so that you can grow your Salon Suite book of business and increase retention through engaging social media interaction.
1. Sharing matters – 4-5 times per day
- The average Facebook user could see 1,500 stores every time they log in, but their News Feed only displays about 300 of them (mtomconsulting.com)
- A Facebook post receives 75% of views and engagement within its first 5 hours (Wisemetrics)
- Facebook users access the platform an average of 8 times every day (sproutsocial.com)
It’s as simple as this: You can’t win if you don’t play.
And playing on Facebook means being active, several times each day. Simple math tells you that if your Facebook post will get its most views, likes, shares, comments and clicks within 5 hours, you should be posting 4-5 times every 24 hours to make it more likely that your social followers will actually see your Facebook updates.
You can extend the shelf life and reach of a Facebook update by “boosting” it as a sponsored post. Compared to other types of paid advertising, sponsoring posts and creating Facebook ads is very low-cost. Even boosting an important post (such as an invitation to come to an event, a special offer or promoting a video about a product or service) with just a few dollars can mean that thousands of people in your city, in and outside of your own social following will see your content.
2. Sharing what matters.
- 32% of Facebook users engage with brands on a regular basis (sproutsocial.com)
- Nearly half – 45% – of U.S. adults use Facebook as one of their primary news sources (PEW Research)
- Everyone on Facebook is connected to one another by 3.57 degrees of separation, on average (research.Facebook.com)
- 83% of parents with teens aged 13-17 are connected to their child on Facebook (blog.hootsuite.com)
- Facebook gets over 8 billion video views a day (sproutsocial.com)
- 20% of Facebook videos are live-streamed (sproutsocial.com) and live videos are watched 3x longer during the actual stream than when replayed
The key to winning on Facebook is post engagement (likes, shares, comments, clicks) because engagement pushes updates into the feeds of other users, extending reach and because engagement turns social followers into influencers.
If your posts aren’t eliciting responses from your audience (likes, shares, comments, clicks) then the content you’re sharing is not engaging, no matter how interesting it is to you. If it doesn’t matter to your audience, you are missing the mark.
You probably have a cell phone capable of recording video. Use it! Video content is among the most viewed, liked and shared content. Instead of simply typing a post about a new product or service, record a 1-2 minute video that educates your followers about it and post it on Facebook. Use Facebook Live to hold how-to and step-by-step sessions showing beauty hacks that will engage and excite your social followers and clients. If you’re camera-shy, practice! You’ll get better and better at it over time and this marketing tactic will pay off dividends.
3. Sharing when it matters.
- Highest traffic occurs mid-week, between 1-3 PM (Bit.ly blog)
- Facebook updates posted at 7 PM will result in more clicks than those shared at 8 PM (Forbes)
- Engagement is 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays (Bit.ly blog)
- Average time spent per Facebook visit is 20 minutes (Infodocket)
- 50% of 18-24 year olds go on Facebook when they wake up (The Social Skinny)
Again, this is where posting content on Facebook 4-5 times a day really makes a difference. In addition, you should create a business page for sharing so that you can get statistics and insights that tell you when your social followers are online and what content they are engaging with. If you’re only sharing updates on a personal Facebook page, you don’t have access to any of these statistics.
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Sources: Zephoria.com 15 Valuable Facebook Statistics; blog.Hootsuite.com Facebook Stats and what they mean for business; journalism.org News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017; mtomconsulting.com Lifespan of a Social Media Post, Sproutsocial.com 28+ Powerful Facebook Stats for 2017