The Salon Owner s Ultimate Guide to Facebook www.phorest.com
COntents Part 1: Building your Facebook shopfront 1 Facebook - they make their money from advertising Never forget that 2 I have a friend page (personal profile) as my business page Should I switch to a business page? 3 Should I use my salon s logo as my Facebook profile photo? 4 What about my cover photo? 5-7 Building your audience using email. 8 Building your Facebook audience through your website Part 2: Understanding What Content Works and Why 9 Who are you talking to?! 10 When are my clients online? 11 The kind of posts that work and don t work - let Facebook tell you! 12 Understanding the figures 13 Quick-fire task: make a variation of your most successful post 14 RECAP: Joining the dots Part 3: Creating Great Content 15 Think before you post - what would you want to hear? 16 Some great posts - examples of the tear jerkers 17 And some more great posts - funny 18 How to sell without selling! 19 Your content - don t just think about your salon Part 4: Advertising on Facebook 20 Should I advertise on Facebook? 21 Boosting a post to increase your reach: fans and friends of fans 22 Measuring the success of a boosted post 23 Boosting a post to increase your reach: getting beyond fans and their friends 24 The most important types of Facebook advertising for salons 25 Creating a Great Page Likes Advert 26 Creating a web clicks advert Don t be shy! /phorestss /phorestsalonsoftware @thephorestword
Introduction acebook is still the king when it comes to social media. You may hear people talking about Twitter, Vine, Instagram and Snapchat, but the majority pale in comparison to Facebook, certainly from a business s point-of-view. In Phorest we put huge effort into our social media strategy and while Twitter is a great social media platform that s growing bigger every year, it still only drives a fraction of people to our website in comparison to Facebook. This is the salon owner s ultimate guide to Facebook. Everything you need to know from setting up your page to answering the questions like should we be advertising on Facebook?. But most importantly, we show you how to post up great content that makes your Facebook page get noticed. Best of luck and if you have any questions, queries or feedback, do get in touch. Let s Grow! Connor Keppel, Marketing Manager, Phorest e: connor.keppel@phorest.com w: phorest.com p: UK - 0207 100 9290 Irl - 01 874 7800 USA - 406 284 7019
Part 1 Building your Facebook Shopfront
1 Facebook - they make their money from advertising. Never forget that. Just because people like your Facebook page, does not mean that they are going to see your updates. In fact, generally only about 3-6% of people who like your page will see your updates. The more people that like, comment on and share your posts and photos, the more exposure you get helping you to break beyond this barrier. (More on content later) Every post has an impact - you need to make a conscious decision before posting something up on Facebook. Never, ever, ever, think This is kind of OK, we ll just throw it up on our Facebook page because it needs updating. You need to give your updates and content a lot of care. If not, you will see less and less likes, comments and shares over time. TIP Facebook makes its money from advertising. It makes it hard for you to reach big audiences without paying - take care in what you post and you can minimise these limitations.
2 I have a friend page (personal profile) as my business page. Should I switch to a business page?? There are two main reasons that you have go with a business page: 1 If a client or competitor reports your friend page, Facebook can delete it without notification as a business should not have a personal profile. The reason being, that when you have a friend page for a business, you have access to a lot more information on a friend than if they simply liked your business page 2 A personal profile is limited to 5,000 friends - a business page can have unlimited likes. Aim high! If you already have a friend page for your salon, don t fret - we show you right here how to change over. A Word of Warning The only info that s carried to the business page is your profile pic, name of profile and friends also become likes - nothing else is carried over. You can download your profile some profile information though and upload it manually. Also if you want a new name on the business page, you will have to set up a new business page.
2 Step 1 - download your info First we should download your info - click on the downwards arrow in the very top right hand of your profile and select settings. Once you re in there, hit the Download a copy of your Facebook data option and then start my archive. Step 2 - setting up a page. Now once this is done, go to Profile to Business Page Migration Click a category for your page Now select a more specific category from the dropdown menu and fill out the required information Check the box saying I agree to the facebook page terms. Then click get started and start filling out your information. TIP Don t wait until tomorrow. Take action and switch your page over to a business page today.
3 Should I use my salon s logo as my Facebook profile photo? I d recommend using a logo for your profile photo. For example when you search for the term hair salon on Facebook, you can see the logos clearly vs. the photo above. Now some of the images of the hair are very striking, but you d never know one salon from the other. That s because the logo space is so small. Make your mark with a clear shot of your logo. TIP Put a nice clear image of your logo as the profile photo. Make sure it s not blurred and that it pops out from the cover photo. (see next tip).
4 What about my Cover photo? Is there something you are really proud of in your salon? The decor at reception? The team? The shopfront? Then the cover photo is the place for that photo. Make sure the image is not blurred or garish and that your logo and cover photo are not trying to do the same thing (another reason a logo works well as a profile photo). Here s two great examples with very different approaches: The Potting Shed Spa showcase their rustic and chic approach with this high-impact photo
4 What about my Cover photo? Continued Love Hair Love Beauty really emphasize the fact they have an app targeting younger audiences. TIP You have a lot of space here to show off something amazing. Take a photo of you and the team or a photo of the favourite part of your salon. Showcase what makes you proud. Your profile photo is like the sign on the front of your salon. You cover photo is the window. What do you want people to see when they look through it?
5 Building your audience using email Step 1: Contacts Similar to building a great salon, there are no major (free) shortcuts to getting lots of traction fast, but there are things you can do to get it right from day one. TIP > Click on your profile name at the top and you ll see a tab called Build Audience. You ll see a drop-down option called Invite Email Contacts. This will allow you to send a request to all the people you regularly email from the email address you used to create this page. Please note that some email providers such as Gmail are not supported for this feature. Use your email contacts to get likes fast from the get-go. You ve already built a relationship with most of these people, now make it social!
6 Building your audience using email Step 2: Email Signature Add a link for your Facebook page to your email signature. We do it here in Phorest with a simple link like so: > If you want to know how to do this, simply Google Adding a Facebook link to your (gmail/hotmail/yahoo etc.) email signature. There s lots of info online. TIP Add a link to your Facebook page on your email signature so Facebook is included in every message. Never miss an opportunity to get your page out there.
7 Building your audience using email Step 3: Auto-responder Some busy salons have their email set up with an autoresponder i.e. when you email the salon it ll automatically respond saying something like Thank you for your email. We re really busy right now, but we ll respond asap etc. If you have one of these, why not add a line such as: In the meantime, if you really miss us, why not check out our Facebook page to see our latest styles/treatments. TIP Add a link to your auto-responder. If the client has access to an active Facebook page, it increases their confidence of getting a returned call or response.
8 Building your audience put the Facebook icon on your website Do you have a website? Talk to your website designers about getting your Facebook icon onto the homepage so it s really prominent. If you have a Twitter account or other social media platforms you need to get it on here too. A website may not change for months at a time, but if people can see that your Facebook page is updated regularly then you re portraying the image you re an active and progressive salon. Insist on putting your Facebook icon on the top of the homepage (preferably every page even). Don t let them get away with the easy option of hiding it on the contact page. See how Sue Carter and the Image team put them up at the top of every page on their website? TIP Add Facebook and your social media accounts to the top of every page. If hundreds of people are hitting your website every month, then it s too good an opportunity to miss.
Part 2 Understanding What Content Works
9 Who are you talking to?! What age is your Facebook audience? Are they mainly male or female? For instance we know that 80% of our audience is female with the majority aged between 25-34. So it d be wise to aim most our posts at people of that age. To find out who you are talking to, go to your salon profile page when you are logged into Facebook. Click on see insights at the top. Click on the people tab as per below and see the male/female breakdown plus main age group. Well done. Now you know who you main audience is! You can see here that 80% of our fans are female and the majority are aged between 25-34.
10 When are my clients online? The second thing you need to understand is when this audience is online. You may put up a piece of content that has you thinking Great, they re going to love this! only to find it fade away with no likes or shares. To learn when you should be posting, go into your insights and click on posts (tab beside people). The first chart at the top you ll see tells us that for Phorest, there is more people online on a Thursday than any other day, and 10pm is the best time to post.
10 When are my clients online? Continued If you find a great piece of content or come up with a great idea you can schedule it - just go about posting up something like you normally would and instead of hitting post, click the clock icon on the left, pick a time and date and hit schedule. Now it will automatically release at that time. TIP Check every new post 24 hours later to see how well it has done. That way you ll know what works and what doesn t.
11 The kind of posts that work and don t work let Facebook tell you! A good Facebooker knows what content works. A great Facebooker knows what content works and WHY. See our latest posts below. Again using insights we can see what s working and what s not. This time click on posts. You ll see a list like the one below. There s two really important stats here:
11 The kind of posts that work and don t work let Facebook tell you! Continued 1 Total reach - this is the total number of people who saw your post e.g. 184 people saw the top post 2 The blue bar to the right of the 2 is the amount of people who clicked on that post to see it. The purple bar is the amount of people that shared, liked and/or commented on it 3 FYI: To the left of three you ll see an icon. This indicates what type of post it was e.g. a link to a video or blog post, an ordinary text status or a photo. 1 and 2 are more important for now. TIP Check every new post 24 hours later to see how well its done. That way you ll what works and what doesn t.
12 Understanding the figures Earlier you read that only 3%-6% of people see your updates. Lets look at the stats mentioned in the last tip again using Phorest as an example. The post we put up on 12th March had a reach of 184 people. For the second post, we had 67 clicks meaning Facebook understood that the post was highly engaging pushing it out to lots of people who like our page - over 500. That s what great content can achieve. We only had 9 likes though. You may think that s nothing considering we had 2,500 people liking our page at the time of the post. But if someone clicks on an image or a post then that s engagement. You ll never see this without using insights though - so don t just look at your wall waiting for likes. That s only a superficial result of the success of your post. TIP Likes, shares and comments are not the only way to gauge how successful a post is. If you can get lots of people clicking on the post it also has a positive effect and is great brand awareness.
13 Quick-fire task make a variation of your most successful post If you want to run a great post right now, why not look at your insights - explained like above, pick your top three Facebook posts that got the most reach. Run similar posts again and see how effective they are e.g. change the image; select a different joke or pick a different celebrity or give a different tip about keeping hair healthy. See if it works as well this time around. Remember to release it at the right time to give it the best opportunity. See tip 10. TIP Don t reinvent the wheel. If you need to update your page soon, look at what s worked before and what hasn t. Change it up a little and capitalise on the hard-work you ve already put in.
14 RECAP Joining the dots So now you should be able to measure what posts work and what don t, plus you should know who your biggest audience is on Facebook. When you look at your posts and your audience, can you see now why some old posts worked and why some didn t? Don t over complicate it - just do these three steps in a cycle: 1 Schedule a post for the most active time of the day (see point 10) 2 Check it after 24 hours to see how it s performing using insights (see point 12) 3 Think about your audience (see point 9). Why did it work/ not work? Keep doing this over and over and after time, you ll see you re getting more and more reach!
Part 3 Creating great content
15 Think before you post what would you want to hear? Many salons fall into one of two salesly traps. Think about somebody you bump into on a regular basis who bores you because they never stop talking about themselves and usually in the context of how great they are. A Facebook page can end up being like that if: 1 You regularly say something like: Check out our AMAZING new treatments. Just 20 now. Not to be missed! or 2 We have amazing treatments and styles. Don t just take our word for it - come in today. TIP You need to peak their interest - selling just doesn t cut it. The posts above are all about your agenda. Make your content about your clients interests and stop them in their tracks with something powerful.
16 Some great posts examples of the tear-jerkers The tear jerker Beauty Beautique Cromer got our tears flowing with this post. What a cracker. This is a great way to say we re in business and we re doing great while simultaneously making it all about your clients. Well done guys. Their page has 800 likes - they got over 50 alone for this post!!
16 Some great posts examples of the tear-jerkers Continued Jennifer of Cherry Red in London gave her clients an amazing Awh moment with this photo about a wee loyal client that refuses to get their haircut with anybody else. Never be afraid to ask a client for a photo. It shows that they are the kind of clients that you salon prides itself on.
17 And... some more great posts - Funny Jardines Face and Body Clinic in Dublin put up this great post. It was so good in fact we robbed it (with their permission of course) and made a Facebook advertising campaign out of it! The post simply said Clients be like... followed by this meme (a photo with humorous statements on them).
18 How to sell without selling! Some salons are great at selling their services on Facebook without ever mentioning a price or book now!. John Fraser Jenkins salon does this by making the quality of their services the focus, not the price, and by asking their target audience what they think. This showcases what you do, the quality and helps people convince themselves they need to be in your salon rather than trying the hard sell and stating the obvious.
19 Your content don t just think about your salon See how easy this content is to produce? Here s a quick checklist when trying to create a post. Not every post has to be about your salon or your services. In fact, only one in every five or ten should be. There s other topics out there to engage people: > Did I see something recently that was funny? > Has anything SCANDALOUS happened in Corrie or Hollyoaks that s dividing opinion? > Has a member of your team had a baby, got married, got qualified in something, passed their driving test or gave their client their first ever treatment - get it up on your page! > Have I taken a before and after recently? TIP Don t give in to the temptation to be salesly. Be topical, visual and emotional. If you come across something you love, schedule it now as a post. Otherwise you ll forget about it.
Part 4 Advertising on Facebook
20 Should I advertise on Facebook? This has to be one of the most commonly asked questions I get. Should I advertise on Facebook?. The answer is maybe! Advertising will not turn a bad post into a good one - but it can help you turn a good post into a super post. In other words, master section 3 before taking out the credit card! Do check your insights. If a post is getting great reach, then Boost it as per the button below. Don t try to boost a post that you ve just posted a few moments ago. You don t know yet if people will like it - once you re getting good reach through insights then boost to your heart s content. Otherwise you may only be paying to show it to people who still won t like it anyway. TIP Pick your best performing post lately. Line it up for boosting (explained in the next section.)
21 Boosting a post to increase your reach: fans and friends of fans Boosting a post means you are paying a small sum of money to increase the reach of a post. There are two ways to do this. 1) Boosting a post to people who already like your page and their friends, or 2) boosting it to people based on location or interests. Let s start with the first type. Once you ve checked your insights and the post is performing well i.e. you think there s lots more people who could benefit from it, then it s time to click the Boost button. Here s how: 1 Make sure this box is checked so it s only promoted among existing fans and their friends 2 Now, set a maximum budget for the day. We recommend setting a budget of about 5-10 for a post
21 Boosting a post to increase your reach: fans and friends of fans Continued 3 Once you set the budget, you ll be given the estimated reach i.e. the number of people who will hopefully see the post 4 Finally, pick how long you want to boost the post for. A duration of 2-3 days for the average post is enough. You can go longer in the instance of something special like the week prior to Mother s Day or Valentine s Day TIP Boosting a post that already works will get great results. If it works well among your fans, Facebook will reward you by showing your regular non-boosted posts to a bigger portion of your audience in the future.
22 Boosting a post to increase your reach: getting beyond fans and their friends You can boost posts to go beyond your existing fans. To do this select the People you choose through targeting at the top. It s very similar to the ordinary boost except you pick 1) your location, 2) age that you wish to target and gender. You should know the most effective age and gender to target from insights. Of course you may feel you have a piece of content aimed at, for example, someone older, and you re hoping to increase that part of your audience. TIP The final part, is the 3) interests. We target beauty and hair professionals. Often salons don t need to put in interests as your clients interests will vary MASSIVELY. Gender and location are the most important filters for salons. When boosting beyond likes and their friends, keep the location as focused as possible so you can see real returns on your bottom-line. Advertising your salon to people 300 miles away is unlikely to help unless you re located in a tourist destination.
23 Measuring the success of a boosted post This is like measuring the reach of an ordinary post. except when you float over the orange bar it will tell you what organic and paid reach you get. Organic: this means how many people you ve reached through ordinary, non-paid means Paid: how many people have seen the post due to boosting. Here you will see how many people the post has reached in total. A good way to measure the success is to compare the final actual figure against the potential reach that you were given at the time of boosting the post. TIP Always check how successful your boosted post is in insights. Likes and comments are a good indication but not the whole picture!
24 The most important types of Facebook advertising for salons Boosting a post is just one way of advertising. Here s the other types you need to know: 1 Page Post Engagement - this is the same as boosting a post and helps you to acquire more likes, comments and engagement on your page 2 Page Likes - this pushes you page into people s feed with a Like button on the post so they don t actually have to visit your page to like it meaning you ll get lots of likes 3 This is an advert that links to the homepage or a specific page that you have on your website. Say, for example, if you have a vouchers page, you might run this advert before Mother s Day so people will buy the vouchers through your website 4 Offer Claims - this is where people can claim specific offers through your advertisement
24 The most important types of Facebook advertising for salons Continued TIP Click on Home at the top of the page --> then adverts manager on the left hand side. Once you are on this screen click on create advert. Here you can see the different types of advertising. Take a look to familiarise yourself with each.
25 Creating a Great Page Likes Advert Getting the copy right: Click on create advert, then click on Page Likes advert and select the page you wish to promote. This brings you to this screen: Here you upload the image you want to appear with your page likes advert. You can upload up to six and Facebook will randomly display them. For now, just upload one image by clicking on the Upload Image link (1) that you think will attract people to you page e.g. a really cool hairstyle or a before and after. This image does not have to be your logo or profile photo as your logo will appear above it anyway.
25 Creating a Great Page Likes Advert Continued Next, you write the copy to go with the advert and view the preview: Make sure the text (this appears above the photo) is punchy and intriguing. For instance, we haven t said We are a salon specialising in hair and nails in Leeds in this example. Instead we entice them with the line Awe-inspiring nails and hair mixed up with some great tips to keep you looking great!. Rather than being just functional, appeal to the senses.
25 Creating a Great Page Likes Advert Continued Make sure your ad is in the right place for the right people: This is really easy to miss! The preview of your advert that you have now seen is how it looks on a computer. Below there are two options, mobile news feed and right column. Click on right column and remove. The reason being that right column ads don t appear on mobile and most people check Facebook on mobile. Once you re happy with the copy, the next step is to set up your audience filters just like you did for boosting the post (see 21). For your first few campaigns, the only area you should focus on is again area and gender - here s a refresher on the next page:
25 Creating a Great Page Likes Advert Continued 1 Here you should type in what area you re targeting. It ll offer you a plus 20km option. This means it s the area plus 20 kilometres. You should do this to broaden your reach. 2 Set your age and gender here. You should probably set the age to 18+. You don t have to put a limit on how old they are. Next select the gender your salon best suits. If it s men and women, then select all. 3 IMPORANT: on connections, hit all so you re reaching as many potential new likes as possible. 4 This tells you what criteria you have set up for the ad and what potential reach you ll get from that.
25 Creating a Great Page Likes Advert Continued Budget and campaign length The next stage is to set the campaign length and budget.
25 Creating a Great Page Likes Advert Continued 1 Here you should name your campaign e.g. in this case you might name it My First Page Likes Campaign - June 2014 2 Set your daily budget. Go easy at the start e.g. 5/ 5 per day 3 Here you choose when you want the campaign to start and end. Run your first campaign for three days and see how it goes. Be super careful to set the correct end date or you card will be charged for days without you knowing! 4 This is an advanced feature - just leave it as the default Bid for Page Likes You ll then be asked to enter your credit card details and press the start button. Facebook will email you within an hour or two to say that your advert has been approved (unless they find a problem with it) and that it has began running. TIP Run a page likes campaign to get more likes. Facebook will send you a report at the end as as a notification telling you how many likes you got. Alternatively you can check out Advert manager to see how the advert is running.
26 Creating a web clicks advert This is very similar to a page likes advert. Again go to create advert and this time select web clicks. Now instead of selecting a page insert a URL such as you www.yoursalon.com/ vouchers - if you want to bring them to a specific page don t just put in www.yoursalon.com - put in the specific page URL i.e. bring them straight to the page you want them to buy from. If they have to go looking for the page, you re going to lose them.
26 Creating a web clicks advert Continued The next few sections are the exact same as the last section (24). You need to: > Select an image you want to display on the advert > Write your copy > Remove right feed > Pick your age, gender and area > Set a daily budget and campaign length When writing your copy there is one difference at the end. You are presented with an option to pick a CTA (call-to-action): This button will appear on the advert. It gives an indication of what the person is clicking through to e.g. if you were advertising vouchers for Valentine s day you d select Shop Now. If you have a web page with a new salon you ve opened or a new product you ve introduced, you d put a Learn More button. The rest of placing this advert is the same. Facebook will send you a notification of how many clicks you got though the advert then.
TIP How Phorest Salon Software grows your Facebook page Now that you re a Facebook expert, we d love to show you some of the great Facebook tools we provide. Grow your likes - automatically email new clients after a visit to your salon thanking them for your business with a link to your Facebook page. 70% of new clients will end up liking the page. Increases referrals - share reviews on Facebook to increase referrals. After every treatment and style your client will get an email asking them to rate the treatment out-of-five and leave a comment. If they rate it ⅘ or 5/5 they ll be offered the option to share it on Facebook with hundreds of their friends - you can also share it on Facebook and Twitter.
TIP How Phorest Salon Software grows your Facebook page Continued Take bookings - take bookings through your Facebook page and turn it into your 24 hour receptionist.
Manage appointments on iphone, ipad and log in remotely PC / Mac Manage stock, staff, sales and appointments in the salon or from the comfort of your home. Plus get more appointments with email, SMS and social media training and tools. iphone & ipad Integration Manage appointments on iphone and ipad. Get clients to download your salon-branded app so you can take bookings 24/7 Go to Phorest.com to request a quote or a free demo p: UK - 0207 100 9290 Irl - 01 874 7800 USA - 406 284 7019 e: letsgrow@phorest.com w: www.phorest.com