Utilising Facebook within your Salon Business

Facebook was founded in February 2004, so almost 14 years ago. From my personal experience, I remember starting to use the platform properly around 2008-2009, as at the time that Facebook launched, there were other competitive social media sites that were still extremely popular, like Myspace and Bebo to name a few. However, for today’s younger generation, they probably won’t even remember a time without it, and as the social world carries on advancing, Facebook is one of the essential social networks that every business needs to have an up-to-date profile on. Simply because, it could be almost detrimental to your company if not. Facebook is the new google. It is one of the first ports of call when people are checking companies out now, and especially in the salon industry. If your business is no where to be seen, it’s almost as if you’re not legitimate or don’t have that online presence for people to be able to identify your current reputation with the public.


But it’s not even just about reputation, Facebook has so many useful tools that can help to enhance your business and also, make it more profitable. And that’s what I wanted to discuss with you today.

Some of you may be aware that we offer 3 different software packages, in which our Enterprise package offers all of our online features. Within those online features, we have specific Facebook tools that we have created to make booking salon appointments simpler, and more convenient for your clients. However also, this reduces the amount of salon calls and messages that you receive day-to-day, as clients can go online and make appointments for themselves. Here’s a bit more info below:

Facebook Appointment Booking

Our salon software has the brilliant feature of ‘instant online booking’, this meaning that our online booking service doesn’t require therapist approval before a booking is confirmed. Instead, the software is clever enough to read the calendar for any appointment gaps, and then advertise these online to your clients. Another great tool, clients will also have their own unique login for your online booking, meaning you will instantly know which client has booked the appointment, and that client also receives a more personable service. So, how do we input this on to your Facebook page you may ask? We create an online booking widget, basically adding a ‘online booking’ tab to your company page which then directly links to your salon’s online booking portal (in which we create all of this for you too, so if it sounds complicated don’t worry).

Your software will then identify when this booking has been made on Facebook by simply showing the logo in the top right corner of the appointment box – a great feature as this way you can keep an eye on how the online booking tool is working for you.

So not only does this improve your company’s services on your Facebook page, it also helps with your booking management as the client can take control of making their booking, and you just carry out the service after the booking is made. Simple.

Facebook Review Requests

Next tool, review requests. One of the biggest reasons why people check out a company on Facebook before making a decision whether to use its services is the feature of ‘real reviews’. Not testimonials on your website that you may have hand-selected carefully – Facebook reviews are pure reviews, typed by the customers themselves and there is no approval stage. So, whatever they have to say about your business is public on your company profile for everyone to read. Which we know, this can be a bit daunting initially as you are not in control of what your clients are going to say. But this is a good thing, and even if you do on the off-chance get that little bit of negative feedback, this gives you chance to act upon this review and improve it. Sometimes, negative reviews actually add to the authenticity of a brand. If all reviews were continuously 5 * perfection, this would be great but, where does that leave your room for improvement and where do you go next? We all know that in the real world, you can be the best of the best, but somewhere, somebody else wants more or will find something else that would be worth improving. But this is worth improving to them personally, obviously everyone is different and this is where Facebook reviews are really key, as it offers your brand the chance to receive genuine feedback, as diverse as people opinions may be. And so, we have built in a tool that allows you to request a Facebook review via text to your customers, to gain that feedback and improve your online credibility.

SMS Marketing Directing to Facebook

Obviously if you have a company Facebook profile, you require a good following in order for this platform to take effect. And so, we have a custom SMS marketing tool allowing you to create campaigns to promote offers, new product lines and any other material that you wish. This including, being able to send an SMS message with links to any specific website, so for instance your Facebook page URL or company web page. Therefore, a great idea to get your following off to a good start could be to create a salon competition. Give people a reason to go and follow your Facebook page. You could create a text highlighting the competition, and for your clients to enter they simply have to ‘like your Facebook page’ and comment their name on ‘said Facebook post’? Our marketing team in-house are also more than happy to book a little training session with you, to create these marketing messages and help to come up with some competition ideas with you.

Facebook really is a platform that is essential to the success of all current businesses. As we mentioned, if your competition is on there but you are not, you could be missing out on lots of sales opportunities. But not only that, it’s such a great tool for marketing to your clients and as we have discussed the potential integrations that we can offer, this could really help to make your salon life easier.

As always, we would love to give you a demo of these features, and you can then trial our software free for a fortnight. We also throw in 50 free SMS messages for you, so you can trial a bit of marketing too! So why not use those to trial the Facebook competition idea? Communicate with your clients!

For your free trial, simply call a member of our lovely sales team on 0113 350 8230 or leave your details at http://bit.ly/RGeGVd.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Salon Tracker x