The do's and don'ts of social media for salons and spas

Social media is the modern-day word-of-mouth. It's a powerful tool that allows salons and spas to connect with their audience, showcase their services, and increase their reach.

A recent Zenoti webinar, Social Media Strategies for Salon and Spa Success, featured Manda Mason and Lauren Vesler, the dynamic duo that founded The W Nail Bar. Mason and Vesler truly care for their employees and offer guests a hyper-clean experience in 16 nail salons across Ohio and Indiana. Notably, The W Nail Bar was voted best luxury natural nail salon in midwestern USA in 2023.

With an active presence on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, The W Nail Bar is no stranger to social media. Quite the opposite – their viral TikTok post with 5 million+ views is proof they’re onto something. Vanity metric aside, their approach to social media is rooted in fresh content serving a long-term strategy, with data and analytics driving their decisions.

We created this post to help salons and spas make the most of social media, so it includes the best tips and highlights from our recent webinar. Let’s dive in!

Choosing the right platform

Start by studying the marketing funnel, a basic framework to drive your marketing strategy. Use the funnel to assess if you’re looking to build brand awareness or educate (top-of-funnel activities), or get people to take action, like book an appointment or gift a membership (bottom of funnel).  

The W Nail Bar builds brand awareness (a top-of-funnel activity for customer education/acquisition) using all of its social media channels. For bottom of funnel, The W mostly leverages Facebook and Instagram due to the ease of tracking key metrics. We’ll look at a couple of examples next.

• A top-of-funnel TikTok post on the copper pedicure bowls at The W – educational. Here's one more – entertaining.

• A bottom-of-funnel Facebook reel on the Self-Care Stash, The W Nail Bar’s membership program – promotional.

“When we first started, it was Facebook and Instagram,” Vesler said, “so a lot of educating our customers on why we’re different – pictures of our copper pedi bowls, what type of sanitation practices we use in our salon.”

When choosing social media platforms for your salon or spa, keep these tips in mind:

• Do understand your target audience and select platforms where they are most active.

• Do utilize platforms like Facebook and Instagram for tracking metrics and audience engagement.

• Do consider platforms like TikTok for entertainment-focused content and community building through real-time interaction.

• Don't spread yourself too thin by trying to be active on every social media platform. Focus on a few that align with your goals instead.

“When you’re first starting out, put together a content calendar. Write what you’re going to talk about each day on social media, and pre-plan it out. That way, you’re not stressed out about it, the day of. Having that strategy helps a lot.”
– Lauren Vesler, Co-Founder, The W Nail Bar

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Deciding on content to post

Your content can make or break your online presence. Create posts that resonate with your audience while staying true to your brand voice.  

The W Nail Bar has “a serious 5-year plan,” so they’re thinking long-term.

“When we post things, we like to think about why exactly,” said Mason. “Is this piece of content educating? Is it retaining a customer? Is it getting someone to buy a product? We like to think about the different buckets we want to hit with our content, and then we do a mix of trending, educational, serious, funny – we like to keep it fresh.”

Vesler stressed the importance of thinking things through: “Our content is strong enough to stand on its own, and the trends are the cherry on top. That wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t a strategy or plan in place.”

Keep these tips in mind when deciding on content to post:

• Do create a mix of trending, educational, and entertaining content.

• Do stay authentic to forge emotional connections with your audience.

• Do plan out a content calendar to ensure consistency and variety in your posts.

• Don't post content that goes against your brand values.

"The other part of marketing that I think people forget about is smart partnerships and community. While we'll talk a lot about social media, there’s also an important piece to not forget about which is the community that you live in and the relationships that you already have."
– Lauren Vesler, Co-Founder, The W Nail Bar

When and how often to post

Find the right balance of post timing and frequency to increase engagement and grow your following. “This is going to be different for every brand because your audience is different,” said Vesler. “I would recommend looking at Sprout Social. It is an incredible tool to look at all of the analytics from all of the platforms that you operate on – it pulls everything into one dashboard.”

Vesler’s tip to get more from existing content: “If you don’t have an ongoing paid marketing strategy, you can also boost posts – that’s a quick and easy way to get more engagement on a post that is already performing.”

What’s The W Nail Bar’s secret to dropping three TikTok videos a day? Working ahead. “It only looks like I do videos every day,” said Mason. “I actually work with our content coordinator one day a week, and we do about 25 to 50 videos in that day. I just change my shirts a lot.”

Here are some pointers to help your salon with timing and frequency:

• Do use tools like Sprout Social to analyze the best times to post based on audience engagement.

• Do experiment with different posting times and frequencies to find what works best for your audience.

• Do engage with other brands and businesses on their social media pages in a timely way.

• Don't post inconsistently or infrequently, as your audience could lose interest.  

How to measure success

After you’ve done the hard work of creating a plan and posting to your socials, it can be tempting to sit back when those likes and shares roll in. Be sure, however, to also check if your strategy is working. Then you can change your approach to get different results.

How about keeping existing clients engaged on social media? “We want to be feeding our current customers good, fun content that makes sense for their lives and adds value to their life,” said Vesler. “That will look different than educating somebody on a pedi bowl because they've already been coming to us for several years."

To measure social media success, think marketing funnel again. Audience engagement with top-of-funnel content shows you’re doing well with posts that create brand awareness. Salon appointments booked or spa gift cards and memberships bought through your social media pages are proof that your bottom-of-funnel posts are driving revenue.

Let’s go over some do’s and don’ts for measuring social media success:

• Do track metrics such as likes, saves, comments, and shares to gauge audience engagement.

• Do measure customer acquisition costs (CAC) to understand the effectiveness of your paid ad campaigns and adjust as you go.

• Do use tools like Meta's dashboard to analyze ad performance and make data-driven decisions. With Meta owning Facebook and Instagram, that dashboard is a useful catch-all.

• Don't focus solely on vanity metrics like follower count. Yes, they’re brag-worthy, but also look closely at engagement and conversion metrics to pinpoint your successes.

Conclusion

Social media can be powerful when spas and salons use it well. When you implement these strategies and tips to make the most of your social channels, you can help your brand stand out, build a loyal following, and stimulate business growth.

With social booking in Zenoti, you can even drive appointment bookings directly from your Facebook and Instagram posts. Explore Zenoti, The W Nail Bar's chosen software for business management.