I recently had the opportunity to do a live Instagram interview with Meghan O'Brien, who owns Marketing with Meg. Her company specializes in marketing consulting, courses and tools all focused on the esthetics arena. Lucky us!
During our chat, she shared some amazing tips but also highlighted some of the common mistakes that she sees out there with some easy tips to fix them. Please read through these and see if you are making these mistakes at your spa or medspa. This is some guidance you won't want to miss!
1. Followers are great, but email addresses are forever.
One of the biggest takeaways from our chat was the advice that while having followers on social media is nice, email addresses are much more valuable. To explain, imagine if Instagram or Facebook were suddenly shut down or sold.
It may seem extreme to say, but there are absolutely no guarantees that these platforms will be around forever. They are companies, like any other, and can stay around or go. In light of this, capturing email addresses and building your mailing lists is crucial for the future of your business. Social media platforms can come and go but email addresses can't be taken away from you.
2. Your newsletters are about value not just news.
We spoke about newsletters and how they should be formatted to be a value-add for your client. They should not be just a bunch of routine, boring content that they won't fully read or open at all.
Furthermore, newsletters should be something that your clients look forward to opening not something that they scroll past never to be seen again. It's fine to sell something or talk about your latest sale or promotion, but be sure to precede that with some valuable advice, tips, or helpful professional information.
Additionally, don't be afraid to show your personality with videos, images or something that you find beautiful. In essence, don't just send the same old updates and sales pitches, be sure to connect and relate to your subscribers on a deeper, authentic level.
3. Instagram is more than just a posting platform.
If you're on Instagram (and you definitely should be by now), be sure to see it for all that it is. Many individuals and companies make the mistake of just seeing Instagram as a posting depot and not the engagement and networking tool that it can be. Be sure to follow other individuals and companies that you like and admire and make meaningful comments on their content.
Additionally, see which accounts those companies are following and reach out to them or share their content. O'Brien cautioned that you don't need to get overwhelmed feeling like you need to post new content every day. If you don't have something meaningful to post that day — it's OK! Instead, spend some time engaging with others. Engaging with your followers and other accounts is just as valuable as posting and should be done for at least 10 minutes or so daily.
4. Don't let new followers pass you by.
When you see that a new individual or company has started following you, be sure to send them a welcome message. Take a moment to make it personalized — don't just copy and paste the same message to everyone like a bot — but write a couple sentences thanking them for the follow and letting them know that you are available for questions.
This will not only boost moral with potential clients or customers, it will increase the strength of your relationship in the algorithm and you will see each other more in your feeds.
5. Don't post without using hashtags and captions.
O'Brien said: think of your posts as islands. When they are seen out there on Instagram by others, they should represent your business as a complete package every time. In other words, each post should be a good representation of your business so it will entice scrollers to checkout your entire feed and possibly follow you.
This can also be achieved by including a call-to-action statement in your caption. Posting a pretty picture or a skincare product may seem like a good way to fill your feed, but without a proper caption or relevant hashtags is essentially a wasted opportunity. Make sure that each and every post represents your brand and directs viewers to your page or links.
6. You don't need to create tons of content to be successful.
O'Brien was very clear during our chat that content creation should not be overwhelming you. After all, there is energy that needs to be spent on running your spa and other aspects of your business, so social media shouldn't be the source of constant headaches. Instead, think about content creation as something that can be created once then refurbished and used in many ways.
This is to say, you do not need to create new or separate content for every medium. To explain, let's say you create a video introducing a new facial at your spa. With that one video, you can post it to your feed, your stories, send it in your newsletter and use a portion of it for a reel on Instagram. One video, tons of content opportunities! Keep it valuable yet simple.
7. Promote your live broadcasts in advance.
Live content is great, but it needs to be promoted ahead of time in order to maximize your views. It's very rare that the portion of your followers who are signed in to their respective social media accounts will catch your live content by coincidence.
Be sure to let your audience know with as much notice as possible that you are going live. Post announcement information in your feed, stories and perhaps even your email newsletter. While your followers will have the option to catch the replay later, it's always great to build your live engagement as well.
In a time when social media marketing is both essential and effective for promoting your esthetics practice, be sure that you are improving your strategy and avoiding the above mistakes. If you'd like to see a replay of my live interview with Marketing with Meg, you can view it on my IGTV @emdskinsolutions on Instagram.
