Nurturing Your Barber Brand. The Significance of Customised Social Media Strategies

When it comes to marketing a barber business, a common mistake is to apply the same principles of content marketing and output as you would a salon business.

The comparison of the barber market vs the wider hairdressing market couldn’t be more different. There are so many unique variables that need to be considered to really hit the sweet spot. I always educate our social media and marketing clients that your content should cover five basic content pillars.

YOU and Your Team.

1. This content is even better than featuring the clients. While it’s great to highlight your skill set and add to your Instagram portfolio, this isn’t the content that gets the most engagement.

Your clients and other local businesses are invested in you and your team on a deeper and more personal level, beyond what you can do behind the chair. They want to see and hear about your latest adventures, achievements and your thoughts on anything and everything.

The Community You Work In.

2. Your content should always speak to your geographic location. When you post content really think about who you want to reach that you’re not already connected to. What demographic of clients are you trying to attract? Most importantly, where are they located? As a general guide anyone that lives within a 5km radius is ideal.

They are more likely to give you repeat business and are a client you can build an ongoing relationship with. These clients are likely already connected to many other Instagram pages from your local community. Think about what pages your ideal client would be tracking in your area? Coffee shops, restaurants, bars, local gyms, surf clubs, football teams.

You job now is to build online and digital relationships with those pages, so their following has visibility to your likes and comments on their pages. You can also get really creative with localised Guerrilla campaigns. Add stickers with your QR codes to local events, sponsor the coasters at your local pub with a QR code and a call to action to follow your page.

Your Portfolio of Work.

3. Of course potential and existing clients want to see the amazing work you do, but don’t flood your feed with lots of similar content that is published back-to-back. Add variety to these posts as much as possible. Use different angles to take the pics, show your diversity in skill set and make sure you have great lighting.

Reels and Video.

4. This is the ONLY way to reach unconnected accounts organically. To get the reach of new followers and grow your audience you need to work with optimised video content. The key tips are:

- Use a cover photo for your reel that will fit into the square Instagram grid feed. If you use a portrait style shot as your reel cover photo you will end up cutting off the top and the bottom.

- Maximise the music you pair to the video. Find a trending track that has a good beat that syncs to the style of your video. You can save your favourite songs when you are scrolling across them by hitting the “save’’ feature.

- If you get a really good amount of views, wait a few days before adding a boosting budget. This will allow you to maximise the FREE organic reach first and you will be working with a post that you know has been successful already. Your money stretches much further.

- Add links to your retail products. It’s essential you have a Meta shop feature set up.

Branding, Education and Call to Action.

5. This is the part where outsourcing is everything. This is the part where you need to get some professional looking artworks to break up all the other content. It gives your page more of an editorial edge. This could be anything from:

- Appointment availability

- Father’s Day or Christmas retail packages

- Styling tips and hints

- Recent accolades

- Education and technique tutorials

- Trend forecasts

These tips are a great place to start if you need to reactive your social pages if they have been a bit static or dormant. Try to post a MINIMUM of three times per week.

You can do behind the scenes Instagram and Facebook stories daily and save them to your Instagram story highlights. When you have content that is really successful or unsuccessful analyse why you got those results? Was it a combination of the brand message, time of day you posted and the visual you used?

If you want help to get your Instagram page active with engagement, we can help.

Follow the QR code to our Barbershop Instagram package.

The package is $550 and includes:

- Instagram cover story artwork template

- 10 Instagram tiles designed for your business for use across the year.

- Set up of the Linkin.bio mini website hosted on your Instagram page OR two reels valued at $150

Hayley Mears

Six Underground Media @sixundergroundmedia