The Tremendous Power of Social Media…

Our society is changing so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up sometimes.  Now, often times it doesn’t necessarily change for the better.  I mean how many “Reality TV” shows can our society watch before everybody’s mind turns to mush?   I think we’re truly bumping up against the ceiling sometimes.

But, every once and a while, I run into something that is truly amazing when it comes to helping the little guy.  And I’m talking about using the power of “social media” to promote your salon.

Social Media refers to a particular type of website that is used on the Internet.  You may have heard of things like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and My Space over the past few years and thought “How can this really help me?”.  And quite frankly, in a lot of cases, they can’t really help you all that much at all.

But there is another type of “social media” site that is catching on like gangbusters and is extremely powerful for salons.  In fact, salons are featured on it and have gotten over 1496 new clients in a single day!  No, that is not a misprint.

1496 new pre-paid clients in only a day!

This type of “social media” site can change a salon overnight.  The name of the site is called Groupon.com.  It is a free membership site that people cansign up for – that features discounted services at businesses.  These businesses are both large and small.  The business will put together a compelling offer that will entice new clients to them.

Salons, and particularly day spas, are perfect candidates for these types of sites because of a few factors.  One, the people who sign up for the offer, pre-pay upfront for the services.  Two, you can “upsell” them other types of services when they come in.  And three, you will be getting new clients that would have never come to your salon any other way.

I have recently seen a nail salon offer a discounted manicure/pedicure and got 1496 people to sign up.  Now, this is not the type of situation that you can give 20% off and 1000 people are going to sign up for it.  The discount needs to be greater than 50% off!

But, what do you care if they’re clients that would never have come to you otherwise, you will upsell them other stuff, and a percentage will rebook appointments and will be lifetime clients?  Remember my blog post of about a month ago called “Why Some Stylists Can Actually Think Like – Monkeys”.  (You can read it again by clicking this link http://www.hairmaxsalonsoftware.com/why-most-stylists-actually-think-like-%e2%80%93-monkeys/)

We are in a new world today.  People are looking for “deals” in order to move off the sidelines.  You need to realize that we are not in 2007 any longer.  Give them a great incentive to try your salon out and reap the long-term benefits.

A few last things.   Make sure you keep track of these “groupon” clients in your HairMax salon software because you know that these clients are rabid consumers of discounts.  They should be grouped as a class by your salon software because you will want to advertise to them as a group in the future.

There are other sites like Groupon but this one seems to pull in the most clients.  Try it out and let me know how you make out.

Best regards, Steve Sampson

HairMax Salon Software is a product designed to be the best investment your salon has ever made.  It is not only the easiest and most powerful salon management software on the market.  It is from a company dedicated to becoming the ultimate VALUE source to the industry.