Social Media Marketing for your Salon

Social media marketing has become a key component for networking in the beauty industry.  Salons should be inquiring as to the importance of this marketing tool. Salon owners could try to tackle this monster themselves, but to really target your clientele and still have time to run your business you may need to seek out professionals. The chances that a large portion of your clients being on some sort of social media page is highly likely. Working with a company who can market for you would be a very smart investment.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to social media. There are so many avenues to reach your clients now with the largest and most obvious being Facebook and Twitter. People of all ages are now engaging in Facebook and Twitter. You can reach your clients no matter what age or personality. In fact, an article on Reuters.com proves that social media is booming amongst all age groups by mentioning that “…social networking usage among the over-65 population is up 100 percent–more than three times the overall growth of social networking as a whole”. Do you want to reach audiences across the board? Your best bet is to work with a marketing team that can help you customize and add reputability to your salon.

There are companies such as Strike Marketing that specializes in this type of marketing for the beauty industry. Since they are familiar with the industry they are going to be able to meet the needs of your business with the knowledge of the industry needs behind their ideas. Having a quality website for your business should be your top priority.

“At its’ most powerful, marketing isn’t about branding and buzzwords. It’s about giving your true target market the information they need to make the right choices. Purchasers need clear, compelling information to help them make the best possible buying decision. Give them that information, and you win”, says Kelly Conway, Founder and General Manager at Strike Marketing. Strike Marketing is a based out of Los Gatos, California.

- Vanessa Barnhill

Twitter becoming Monetized

Previously a paid-for free zone, Twitter has now started testing phases on allowing companies to have “promoted by” tweets.  One of the main features of these tweets is a company can set a budget and promote a specific tweet.  The tweet will allow sub-text to be provided followed by ‘Promoted by ______’.  This will also show the number of retweets that the ad has received.  Currently, there are only a few companies that are allowed to use this tool and are testing to see how successful the program is.  This new way of tweeting combines organic search with paid promotions.  Read the full article from Blog Catalog.

Jennifer DeMarco
Marketing Manager

Who’s In and Who’s Out?

The statistics are in!

The newly formed Social Media Marketing genre have taken companies by storm.  Small companies have found an inexpensive way to speak with their customers about special events, promotions, problem-solving and much more.  But, the questions has shifted from: should I join the conversation to where do I join in the conversation?  MySpace was a large forum and a launchpad for the social networking generation, but movement has appeared to shift fom MySpace to Facebook.  Yet, companies still ask…should I join MySpace?

A recent study of business owners found from 2009 to 2010, social networking sites such as MySpace, Digg, Flickr, and StumbleUpon have become less important than their more popular counterparts: Facebook, Twitter, and a company blog.

This research is a strong reinforcement of what we have been saying at Strike Marketing for a year now…not to mention the success our clients are finding from implementing a strong social media marketing program!

SMM as the new Word of Mouth?

We did a story in 2009 about the possibility that social networking sites have allowed for a new version of having a pen pal. I’ve been pondering more out of social networking lately and it crossed my mind that social sites have allowed for a new form of word of mouth.

Word of mouth was once deemed the best form of marketing – when cast in a positive light. Word of mouth is free and spread by a trusted source. It wasn’t encouraged by a business,, but from peer to peer.  But word of mouth has changed forms, in a sense. People still talk at school, work, or on the phone; however, social networking sites have allowed for an additional forum for peer to peer talk.

Social netwokibg sites like facebook, myspace, Twitter, and yelp have allowed peers to speak to eaach other about great sales, services, companies, etc. Yelp was recently hit with a lawsuit regarding their rating techniques by a business.  Businesses are worried that their image is being misrepresented. If you think back to word of mouth, it can be good or bad. It is all based on how the consumer views the company it’s products and/or services. So why should companies be outraged by what people are doing or saying on social networking sites?

If a company wants good reviews, then it is their responsibility to provide great products and customer service. Social networking is a way of open, honest communication that reaches millions. Create a positive business and the payback should be immense with such a large forum talking about their business practices.

Jennifer DeMarco
Marketing Manager

Customer Service: The Differentiating Factor and Social Media Marketing’s Role

With every factor that goes into marketing, many companies, especially major corporations, tend to over look the very basic essentials that can ultimately be the deciding factor in customer loyalty. Two words, customer service. In the article “Can Social Marketing Save Customer Loyalty”,  from the Chief Marketer, awareness is created that shows just how crucial customer service is and uncovers the secret is of some of these big corporations and how they maintain phenomenal customer service, social networking.

Zappos, Intuit, and Comcast, are just a few companies that are crowned as king of customer service and how they have utilized social networking to their advantage. Customer service is essentially the last factor to differentiate companies, however, the experience in dealing with a company and their product is a large percentage of retention in customer loyalty. Yelp is a social networking site that is purely dedicated to customer reviews, ranking their experience and satisfaction with a company.  Studies have shown that through customer service, customer loyalty or the loyalty effect can increase retention by 5% which can inevitably lead to an increase in revenue anywhere from 25-85%.

Taking The Leap of Faith

It is a scary thing to divert and abandon everything you have learned and been trained to do, but accepting change and being able to adapt to it is necessary in the business world. For some social media marketing is an overwhelming obis of confusion and frustration, and want to have nothing to do with it. For others they have used it but never developed this resource to work as an effective tool and as a result caused more headaches rather than helping the business, but there are three things to keep in mind as you prepare to take that leap.

Marketing Associate, Melissa’s View on SMM

“Twitter, tweeting, poke, hug, tag, buddies, comments, wall posting, blogging…. It almost sounds like a different language, so what does this actually mean besides a bunch of nonsense? The biggest development in networking today is starting to expand at a rapid pace. Social Media has become the biggest development among people of all ages for various different reasons, but yet continues to have split reviews from people of whether or not it is really practical or just an annoyance.

I kept hearing about Twitter from some of my friends who have been hooked into the latest fad as well as on TV from numerous celebrities that religiously give updates on their latest endeavors. I decided to check it out first hand to see what all the fuss was about, but my biggest question was, “why should people care about what someone had for breakfast?” Well I guess some people like to be “in the know”, however that is not the only benefit that Twitter or various other Social Medias like Facebook and MySpace provide.

Social Media Marketing Spending

What will it cost to get your name out there and quickly build brand awareness? According to the B2B magazine increasing numbers of businesses are turning to this new model of marketing for quick brand building and awareness. Many of those companies have reaped the benefits in revenue for having stepped out of the cookie cutter mold of traditional marketing. A projected annual growth ranges from 32-34% and with Social Media Marketing being the fastest growing channels, a reported $716 million spent in 2009 is estimated to increase to around $3.1 billion in 2014. As more consumers are turning to the web for their information, this has created an immense opportunity for Businesses to reach out the masses and grow awareness.

One article, Two Thoughts

On May 4, 2009 Chiefmarketer.com posted an article titled “Five Must Ask Twitter Questions”. Both Jennifer and Melissa, Marketing Associates at Strike Marketing commented. Here are their thoughts:

Jennifer:

The article focused on questioning a companies’ ability to optimize site traffic, search engine rankings, inventory depletion, reputation management, and news distribution on Twitter. The article brought about some interesting points that many companies are missing out on:

Revolutionizing Marketing

Companies are quickly turning to a new way of marketing. As consumers log on to the web for their email, news, online shopping, research, advertisements, new product releases, and network communities, the web is now considered as their main “go to” for their information needs. As a result companies have begun to structure their marketing and advertising strategies toward social media marketing.