Writing A Good Post

THE WRITING OF A GOOD POST*

* or reel, or video, etc

WHAT IS THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE TO WRITING YOUR POST?

It should be to communicate knowledge or improve the hair salon client and dream client’s lifestyle being careful not to lecture, beg, be presumptive or offer a strong opinion. If it passes the aspirational test, it’s a good post. Focus as much as possible on your best hair salon related subjects as that is what you are, a hair stylist/salon. If you offer other services, then post themes related to that as well. Decide to broaden to broader category such as posting abut beauty if the hair themes become limiting or a challenge.

NOTE: From hereon, we will refer only to “dream client”, the potential client. But assume we also mean your hair salon existing client base as well.

1. WHO ARE YOU TARGETING?

You are targeting your top 3 segments (What is that? see Module “The Secrets of Segmenting”, follow module guidelines to determine top 3, yes this is requiring a bit of brain power) Taking this step back is worth it for you for consistency, targeting to the right dream clients, not wasting your precious time and spending your hair salon’s hard earned promotional dollars wisely.

2. WHAT ELSE SHOULD THE POST SUPPORT AND WHAT SHOULD SUPPORT THE POST?

Your web site is the hub for all digital communication (See module “Digital Flow” for the visual of what we mean). The social channels are outliers, like blogging, like ad campaigns etc., set up to always feed into your web site so that your target becomes a user of your web site.

NEVER use a social channel as your hub. Why? Because you own and can control your web site, you can’t control your social channels. If your hair salon is solely dependent on pages and walls and the followers of them, what happens when those powerful “monopoly” channels make changes that they see as improvements to their business yet can greatly affect the work you’ve put into your salon’s page or wall. They can restrict your work by just changing their algorithms making it more difficult for your followers to see your posts, or they can be restricted by government regulation such as the current crackdown on how real and fake news is being consumed. Your web site and all of its content, however, is controlled by you so keep that in mind. You will maintain control of increasing or losing users based on your web updates and additional features you chose to add.

There are 3 main reasons you are in the “post” business:

a) For staying in touch with your clients and for their feedback.

b) To reach out to dream clients.

c) To support interesting online and offline salon promotions and events, promotions for hair, discount, or coupon promos.

Post ideas are researched numerous ways, blogs you read, other web sites you visit, your own articles you write or other 3^rd party articles. Just remember you are posting only themes that pertain to your 3 top segments ie your dream clients. YOU CANNOT BE ALL THINGS TO ALL TYPES OF CLIENTS.

3.WHAT IS THE ISSUE/PROBLEM OR MINDSET TO BE ADDRESSED?

You must assume your hair salon dream client has a consistent well-crafted point of view on the emotional topic of hair/beauty. Respect and post accordingly to increase salon clientele.

It is also good to note here that your posts must be accurate and come from reliable sources if you are providing knowledge or linking to an article. You must assume dream clients find you because they are looking for a hair salon in a particular area, or they are searching for hair articles (or beauty articles) or overall loyalty and curiosity to what is happening. Each post must communicate energy, inspiration or cover their topics of interest.

Over time, we’ve learnt of some of the non-hair emotional topics people may want to read about. By no means is this a complete list, nor sorted in importance, but here goes, topics of:

Health

Safety

Literacy

Knowledge

Longevity

Free expression

Political participation (cautionary and a very polarizing topic, proceed with caution)

Recreation and play

Enjoyment of nature

Emotional attachments

Social affiliations

Opportunities to reflect on

Engage in one’s own conception of the good life

Career

Family

Marriage

Money

Reading/book recommendations

Recreation

Friendships

Being a leader/making a social contribution in the community

NOTE: This note is a reminder that social is a collaborative process, meaning all stakeholders in the hair salon, hair salon owners and employees should be encouraged to think up themes or write posts and send to the Social Administrator for posting. This way the “pressure” to write is spread amongst the team. If needed, incentivize them.

Lastly, to grow your dream clients, make sure your salon is CLAIMED on MANEreviews.com ( go to https://mindshair.manereviews.com/engage/claiming-your-salon-follow-these-steps-17501 ) We are a centralized source of all thing’s hair, not only in North America but also in your local trading area in the US and Canada.

4.WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? ARE THERE FRINGE SOLUTIONS AS WELL?

The intention of your posts is to be transformational, take dream client somewhere. Think of ways the post can have them experience life positively. Yes, you want to promote your service or products, but in order to draw in a dream client, you first must gain their trust and confidence that you are not posting only “what is in it for your salon” but instead “what is in it for them”.

Coming to your page, the dream client will see that your posts are very well thought out, polished and consistent. Posts should not just be text but are stronger when supported by links to content, or photography or videos (See Module “How to do Social Photography” and “How to Guide Video Producers/Editors”, both currently under construction).

5.WHAT IS THE PROMISE YOU MAKE TO YOUR DREAM CLIENTS?

You promise to provide the best possible thoughtful posts and to only communicate the truth about reviews, posted articles and a commitment to both the dream client and the success of your salon. Sounds obvious but really needs to be said.

Communicate frequently that your salon is deeply interested in your dream client’s lifestyle and wellbeing and will provide helpful information that will be useful to dream clients at different stages of their life, making their life easier and/or informed. By being both an informative page and a single source for them, you can become the page of choice and the “go to” for hair community in your local area and it will influence how to get more clients into your salon.

6.MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICES OF SOCIAL CHANNELS

a/Facebook

“Here is what we have done”

-Used to check in with friends and family and for businesses to engage them

b/Instagram

“Here is what we see”

-Sharing photos/videos and chatting with friends and businesses to engage with them

c/YouTube

“Here is what we want to demonstrate/train/teach you”

-Search topics of interest and new products, demonstrate your business

d/Snapchat

“Here is what we see but only visible for seconds”

-Friends and share photos, strong with mobile user

e/Twitter

“Here is what we are doing”

-Check in for breaking news and current events and opinions

f/LinkedIn

“Here is what we are working on”

-Used by professionals/business, sharing of content, photos, reaching out to network, reputation management oriented, used by individuals, businesses, associations, groups

g/Tik Tok

“Here is where we are singing, dancing, doing comedy, lip-syncing or expressing and doing so through video”

-Used by friends but beginning to attract businesses

h/Pinterest

“Here is what we are doing using images, animated GIFs and videos”

Search topics of interest and new products, design is a very popular topic, demonstrate your business using strong visuals.

7.IS THERE A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE, IF SO, WHAT IS IT?

This is primarily why you are reading this module, to seek a competitive advantage. This is why you are spending the time improving your posts or gaining another perspective on posting. Seek the reason you are spending this time in the first place. How are you different from your nearest competition? This answer will often be posting themes.

Your advantage may be that your competition knows no different and all they do is post about their products or services, but you can see the value in making an emotional connection and only a few times a month, push effective ways to get clients into your salon.

Traditional advertising is a “push” strategy, you are pushed into reading the message. Social, like other online strategies are what we call “pull” strategy, you are pulled in and persuading because the message presented on your feed, is usually something of interest to the, the user. To a certain extent, social can also push a message, but at least there is an alternative, more friendly, option to pull the dream client in ready to read the message. Always think of the user first, referred to as the user experience. If you do, loyalty will come.

8.FREQUENCY OF POSTS

Using inspirational themes, post not more than 3x per week, one of them can be pushing your professional hair products and services. The frequency should not be such that it annoys your dream client base, which is always the “big dread”. Learn from your own personal experience, too much pushing “product” appearing on their feed like yours, turns you off, so it does your dream client.

**post up to 4 x per weeks if your have the resources to do so.

9.WHAT DO WE WANT YOUR DREAM CLIENTS TO DO ON YOUR CHANEL?

Become a fan, a follower, engage/like, comment, provide feedback or refer the posts to their network etc. Of course, when it’s time to look for a hair salon or hair stylist, you want them to think of your salon first. Plan all features of your post accordingly.

You want their impression to be that your hair salon is a friendly, open place, a place deeply interested in their wellbeing and deliver on their expectations.

10. BUILDING A POST

In the interest of length, we are using examples for Facebook and Instagram only for this module as each channel, like Facebook and Instagram, may have some unique characteristics. Other channels may format differently, but the principles are the same. We are also not discussing paid posts and paid advertising. This module is focused only on how to increase salon clientele organically (free) to obtain results. (See module “Why Paid Advertising” for further information on paid advertising options.)

Facebook’s formatting accepts status updates, comments, pictures or videos that posted on the business’s Facebook page. With Instagram, posts are carousel posts, video posts or image posts. shared on the business’s wall.

Elements and tone of a post:

A/ Layout and themes - First think about the layout for the post. What do you want it to look like on Facebook? On Instagram? Remember on Instagram it is laid out on a wall and comes in the form of a tile (a square box). It opens up further, but first displayed on the Instagram wall so make sure it has a relationship with color and design with other tiles on your salon’s wall. We see many Instagram walls that don’t have a consistent look. If you have an inconsistent look with your brand, what does it say about consistency of your salon services. When we say consistent look, we don’t mean look the same, we mean having a relationship with the other tiles on the wall.

Here are some layout considerations for your posts:

a) Find or shoot “snackable” photography. What is the first thing we do when we are famished for food, we laser focus on securing a snack. That’s why we call some photography “snackable”, the shot is so interesting that the dream client is laser focused on the shot. Often, familiar, cultural icons works, some character familiar to your target audience. In the case of MANEreviews, we decided to create our own character, a “hare” and believe through time and multiple usage, it will become iconic. We chose to design so that we wouldn’t need permission and pay royalty from the creator of a famous character ie Walt Disney Studio’s for Peter Pan or The Lion King, for example. Here is our hare in a Thanksgiving adaptation used on our Instagram page. We’ve recreated “her” a few times as a magician, a hair stylist, a baby hare and more.

b) Find or shoot “sneak peak” photography – Here is what we are planning or here is who is working behind the scenes dedicated to your dream client’s great experience.

Look for or create expressive images

Use LARGE FONT

Look to personalize the salon atmosphere or salon experience. Show stylists behind the scenes, not just doing a client’s hair, but really what is going on in the atmosphere of the salon. Make sure to use real stylists, we are not creating a magazine cover, we want real life in social.

c) Find or shoot “action” photography – the intention here is for the image and text to commit the dream client to act. Often it done by using sayings or popular quotes that resonate with people “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but sometimes it can be “My first experience with a celebrity hair stylist was ________”and then the special element such as:

Click like if you believe this is true

Click the same experience should be yours too. What is it to share ______?

You can also engage by

Making sure to ask to like a post, share a post or comment on a post

d) Find or design “blog post” photography – If you have a blog feature on your web site or you write original content on the site, take screen grab of top portion of blog and create a post, carefully looking for where to chop and end with “…read more…”. Carefully look for and choose blog images and headlines to grab dream client’s attention. Either redirect them to your web site, or the snippet post is enough, and your objective is then that they like, share or comment.

e) Find or shoot a “traffic generating” image, then write text like this:

“Be one of our hair tip gurus. We’ll share on our web site and post you helped out.”

B/Characters or Text - Write words for the post. Be carful of the length. The best lengths seem to be 21-100 characters. Note in Facebook, the post can be text on its own or a pdf with text super imposed on the image. With Instagram, the visual first and if there is text, it’s contained inside the visual.

C/Supporting Image or link - Decide if there is to be a link, a photo, a video. If a video or photo does not apply, Instagram is not an option.

D/Call to Action - This is not mandatory, but if engagement and/or shares with your post is an objective, then a reminder to the dream client to act, referred to as a “call to action” – that is the last part of the post. What type of action do you want them to take? Here are some examples, not written in any order of importance.

Feel free to use these suggestions, compliments of MANEreviews.com:

“Like here.”

“Join in now.”

“Comment now.”

“Click here.”

“Go there.”

“Do this.”

“Don’t forget to like our page.”

“What do you like?”

Like our post

Share our post

Comment on the post

In paid, some examples of calls to action might be:

“Call the number below and make an appointment now.”

“Fill out this form and see.”

“Attend our seminar.”

“Here is a promotional offer exclusively for you.”

“Go to home page and book an appointment.”

“You are invited to a live chat.”

E/Your company brand colors- Use your hair salon business’s colors. If you don’t know or don’t have, start with the colors you used for your signage or your logo color(s). If that doesn’t guide you, then chose a color(s) and stick with these colors for every communication piece you do both online and offline. See our Instagram page where we (@manereviews) builds our wall using our brand’s “brown-y” color, that is one of our brand colors.

F/ Hashtags – Still relevant today. They are a powerful feature to connect with dream clients on social channels. Hashtags are how your dream clients find you besides a referral from someone from your channels. If they are looking for hair services, then you want them to find your salon business in their page results (a paid promotion is another option).

Hashtags to social is like keywords to web search. You want to search for the most popular targeted hashtags. Since we don’t want to be hashtag heavy (too many on a single post). The average seems to be 7 hashtags per post. First start with hashtags that more targeted to your trading area.

One of the useful ideas is to use hashtags that represent some popular attractions in your area. If it is an event/arena/stadium venue, then #nameofthestadium. If it is popular restaurant that is close to the location of your salon and that your dream clients might be dining there (similar target audience in terms of affordability), then hashtag #nameoftherestaurant on your posts and so on. If you haven’t gotten to 14 hashtags at that point, then, go more broadly to #yoursuburbname, #yourcityname, #yourprovincename. Don’t add more than 20 hashtags. Just remember the more broadly you go, the more likely you will have viewers who would not be interested in hair. If your object is more followers only, then this fit into your strategy. However, if your objective is finding dream clients, focusing on hashtags for geotargeting reasons (within driving distance of your salon)and hashtags specific to hair is more optimal.

There are a variety of sources to obtain your keywords for organic or paid search:

a) locate influencers that target similar clients, what are they using as hashtags.

b) look at the “page source” on your competitors web sites, what are they using as keywords and can those keywords be YOUR hashtags.

d) What is trending, the hashtag doesn’t always have to directly relate to the theme of the post. i.e. your post is on hair and you want new users to see your post so add a hashtag of a popular attraction that is with the vicinity of your salon such as #nameofmuseum.

e) Google is your friend. Search up “popular hashtags for ____ +add the year” ie. Popular hashtags for Halloween 2021.

f) Check hashtags on Instagram looking for the most popular (shows underneath the hashtag)

g) Brainstorming with your staff, family, friends (Ask them: if they wanted to search to find your salon in a particular location, what words or phrases would they use. Their answers may be your hashtags).

h) Think in the shower, or wherever you are most focused on your thinking :.) Have a paper/pen nearby or command your voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service, like Alexa or Siri, to records your hashtag suggestions. You’ll forget if you don’t record immediately.

i) This web site updates hashtags quite frequently: https://influencermarketinghub.com/most-popular-instagram-hashtags

See “Module Keywords/Hashtags To Have You On Your Way” (currently under construction) for more details on the use and a list of hashtag suggestions.

NOTE: this is a continuous process; your business is always looking for killer hashtags.

NOTE: When using your images, you may want to consider keeping a “library” of images that you have previously used, in the off chance you may wish to reuse for either other posts, other channels, blogs or for other forms of online/offline communication. By doing this, the repository of images is always ready and available for you.

12. DEFINE TOUCHPOINTS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR SALON’S DESIRED OUTCOME.

a) The sharing of visuals or linking of relevant content. What do you consider success?

b) Don’t over post (3 x/week of educational/ entertaining /knowledge /aspirational posts including 1 x every week directly promoting your salon or services is considered enough that a dream client is not turned off by too much in their feed)

c) Promote events, affordable, interesting in your city.

d) Study the most optimal time to post. Your channel analytics should tell you. Usually, it is in the early evening everywhere, but sometimes, it on a holiday day or daily at their lunch break.

e) Build a relationship with current users (may be different relationship from your dream client depending on need and lifecycle). Millennials and Gen Z are the Instagrammers, Facebook have these segments as well, but also has an older segment if this is a top target for the salon.

I DON’T HAVE TIME TO BUILD OUT MY HAIR SALON POST THEMES. WHY DO WE DO THIS?

· To find new hair clients and to reach a very targeted hair salon business dream client (in your geo-targeted area and who wants hair services your salon offers).

· Engagement or communication with dream clients.

· Convert a dream client to a loyal client, a new “bum in seat” to grow your hair salon business.

CLICK HERE to go back to DIY Marketing Modules summary page. Keep checking in, other modules currently under construction.

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Writing A Good Post

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