Ahead of schedule

It’s hard to manage both a salon and its online presence. Salon social media expert Debbie Lewis outlines how to batch, schedule and strategise, in order to create a social media plan you actually have time for

Running a successful business and keeping up an active social media presence can feel like taking on two full-time jobs at once. However, these two roles are becoming more and more inseparable – for example, a standout Instagram post can gain you countless new clients, and your regulars will love if you’re interacting and answering their questions regularly on Facebook.

What’s the key to this necessary balancing act? Debbie Lewis, Salon Socials founder and social media consultant, says it’s all in forward planning. Here’s how to get ahead while keeping your salon’s content tailored and fresh.

Strategy days 

“Regardless of where your business is, you always need a sketch of where it’s going, especially socially. This is why I always have a strategy day in November to think about the upcoming year,” says Lewis. “We consider the important events of each month and the type of social content that would work around those times.

“The planning you do in November for the rest of the year is a rough draft, then every month you should take an hour or so to narrow it down, scheduling at least a month ahead to ensure everything is ready in time. You could do this as a 90-day plan with an equivalent threehour planning instead if this suits you better. On top of the annual and monthly planning, I then hold a morning marketing meet-up every Monday to discuss the upcoming week.”

Batch your information

“Batching is collecting all necessary information and imagery for your posts in one place, including sign-up details and hashtags. We use a simple template on Canva that includes my branding, so you can tell at first glance who the post belongs to,” says Lewis. “Then, I’ll tweak the content slightly for each post, as the algorithms on social media platforms don’t like duplicates. If you’re going to use a template, switch up at least 20-25% of the wording to make it fresh each time. Other great template platforms include Dazzle and InShot.”

‘Posting on all social platforms can be time-consuming and unnecessary, so work out which sites work best for your audience and your brand image’

Use ‘social rocks’ 

“Rocks are replicable pieces of content with a twist that can be posted regularly. The ‘customer buy-in’ journey has three stages: awareness, overcoming objections and the sale. We spend a lot of time in the ‘sale’ portion when we’re trying to get people to book, but we only need around 20% of our content to reflect this. Instead, balance this with lighter content that is interactive with the audience, rather than just ‘buy this’,” explains Lewis.

“For example, we used to do ‘Manicure Monday’ and each week we would switch up between aftercare, gallery   images, quotes and ‘meet the nail techs’ pieces – lots of angles, but still under the same title. Once you decide a themed day that suits your business, it’s easy to batch, replicate and put it in your plan every single Monday as a ‘rock’.”

Repetition isn’t a deal-breaker 

“Repeating content across platforms isn’t ideal but, let’s face it, if you’re a solo entrepreneur, it’s better to have content out there than radio silence. The latest statistics show that less than 20% of your content is seen by your followers on Facebook, so you’re pretty safe to repeat it every three or four months,” advises Lewis.

“However, remember that social platforms hate repetitive behaviour such as pre-scheduling and copying hashtags because it’s not true social behaviour. So, make sure you act like a human and not a business or they will try and monetise what you do through ads and boosted content.” PBHJ

Debbie Lewis is founder of digital consultancy Salon Socials and an entrepreneur acceleration manager for NatWest.