Why Online Presence is so Important for your Business!

Last week we were all astonished that it had been 10 years since the first ever iPhone was released. I mean, we can’t even remember a time without our smart phones, what did we do?! But it’s strange to think that it’s only in the last decade that these technological advances have really evolved, where we can’t imagine a time where we didn’t have these forms of transportable technology. It just goes to show how the way of the world has changed in the last 10 years. I mean, as a kid we used to read story books and join dot-to-dots in activity books, nowadays the kids are better on iPad’s than most of us adults - with the majority of our traditional games now going digital on these devices!

So, just a little something to think about, as the younger generation in another 10 years’ time could be some of your clients and the technology will by then have advanced even further, we would expect. Having said all of this, we just wanted to discuss with you the importance of your business being online, and why it is essential to have digital platforms to be able to communicate with your clients.


Online Booking

According to Statistic Brain, over 148.3 million travel bookings are made online every year worldwide. That’s an astounding figure, and a great insight in to how the consumer shopping habits have changed. However, that’s not to say that the travel agent is dead, as many of these companies now host their own online booking platforms alongside their traditional stores. It just demonstrates to your clients that you have that online option, to also make your booking facilities more accessible as they have flexibility for making that booking. You will however still always receive clients who prefer to book the traditional telephone way, or directly in the salon, but that’s okay too. It’s as we said, just more about giving your clients that digital choice.


Mobile Booking

According to Ofcom, smartphones having taken over the old PC/laptop when it comes to browsing online. Again, this is down to flexibility and convenience. A mobile is compact and easy accessible to carry around 24/7, wherever you are in the world. Taking that in to account, this is a great statement to think about when it comes to giving your clients the option to book your services. By offering mobile booking you are giving them a constant online service, wherever they are at a particular time - which should generate a much better revenue for you in the long-term!


Social Media Presence & Booking Facilities

Social Media Today have identified that there are 2.8 billion active social media users worldwide! Now that is a lot of people (and a lot of potential customers for you to be reaching). OK, so maybe we’re exaggerating with reaching everyone, but, if you narrow this down to think how many of these people are living in the UK? Then narrow it down again to your local area, you will be still talking in the thousands and with social media now been one of the fastest ways for businesses to communicate with their consumers, it is important that your brand is represented across social platforms.

And it’s not to say that all social media networks are going to be right for your business. But if we take the 4 most popular according to Statista, these are; Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter; with these you then have a mixture of the benefits of each network and how you could adopt your strategies differently for each platform.

Facebook is the most popular and the largest used social network world wide, and the beauty of Facebook is you can add online booking facilities in to your company page, you can have a messaging service to speak to clients, post photographs, post links and generic business information. You therefore have 5 ways there in which you can reach clients differently by using a range of content ideas across one digital platform. So maybe Facebook is the first one that you think about if your business doesn't already have an active account.

YouTube is the best for your vlogging! You could promote your salon services by creating your own video content, or initially even just have your own account where you share other people’s ideas as inspiration. However you use it, with 1 billion active users worldwide we’re sure that it’s worth it!

Instagram only launched in 2010, so only 7 years ago! And if you think back, originally it was only developed for smart phones and not on PC. This was a social introduction that was created perfectly in line with the increase in smart phone users, and hasn’t it taken off! With 600 million unique users a month, it is potentially one of the fastest growing social networks and so going back to our discussion about mobile booking, your Insta-profile gives your clients instant accessibility to view information about your brand 24/7! Use it to showcase your new services, best looks, client work etc. etc. Everyone loves a good visual business profile. It’s like the old saying ‘a picture paints a thousand words’, it’s a quick and simple solution to get messages across to clients.

Twitter has 317 million unique users per month and we think the main USP of this network is the short word allowance. It is best used for quick, snappy messages as a pose to your lengthier perhaps Facebook or Google + posts. An interesting stat is that; most users only spend an average of 2.7 minutes on the app per day; which when you think about it, that isn’t a long time. Also any content that you do post on Twitter after 20 minutes is likely to be lost behind a million other posts, just because of the small character count and the amount of people posting. So the key with this network is to ensure that you’re active on there, to build your brand’s credibility on a popular social network, and to make sure that any messages that you do want to portray are reiterated often. Don’t just tweet about it once, tweet about it 15 times that week, but in a different way each time.

So after running over the stats of different online platforms, we are aware that most of you are probably online already in some form, whether for business or just personal-use, so you are likely to already hold some of this information. Whether it be that you have a few social media accounts or you have an online booking service through the web, these are just some little extra pointers for you to think about with other potential networks. But whichever apply to you, it is extremely important to ensure that your social profiles are:

-Up to date

-Relevant

-And make sure your content is refreshed and updated regularly

92% of UK businesses are active on social media in some way, and therefore if you think about new clients that are potentially doing some research, if they spy your competitors online and not you, you could be missing out on that sale!

And so, 3 main reasons why your online presence is so important for your business;

It spreads the word about your brand, keeps your online reputation alive and provides clients with fast and accessible information about your products & services.


Hope this helps a little!


Salon Tracker


Sources

-Statista
-Social Media Today
-Statistic Brain
-Ofcom
-Digital Magazine
-We are Social