Expert Advice: Becoming your own beauty ‘influencer’

I think it is my age, but I am always baffled by the number of people, admittedly younger than me, that come in telling me about something they saw on TikTok or some other social media outlet and how new and revolutionary it is.

Inevitably, they are usually talking about either something we have been doing for decades (think Skin Cycling) or some utter nonsense recommended by an influencer who has no beauty training or qualifications and zero experience in what they are advising about.

Besides baffling me, it winds me up that people get so sucked in by a person they don't know on the internet believing that lots of followers equals the influencer knowing what they are talking about! 

As if we don't have enough to do running businesses, treating clients, marketing our business, being stock controller, cleaner, advertising guru, compiling our accounts, doing our tax returns and more, we now need to become influencers for our business. The whole thing is becoming a Herculean task to say the least.

There are other options of course. You can ignore all forms of social media and just continue about your business as you always have done especially if your loyal clients are of an age where social media isn't important to them. However, what happens as these clients age, maybe retire and move away, and, as morbid a thought as it is, pass on? Who have you attracted to replace them? 

Marketing and promoting your business all of the time is so important, so you have a constant succession of new customers and you don't feel the hit when others fall away. You need to stay relevant and creating video content for social media seems to be the answer to doing so.

Your main social media options are Facebook, X formerly known as Twitter (personally I don't find this to be useful to my business), Instagram and TikTok.

You could employ a company to manage all of your social media outlets for you. Obviously there is a cost to this, and whilst guidance from an expert on what to post could be helpful, choose who to work with carefully so there's no possibility of your social pages losing the personality of ‘you'. 

Let us never forget we are a personal service industry and the client buys in to us as much as they do our services. Whilst gaining professional advice should be welcomed, in my opinion the best thing to do is make your own informative and factual content from your own experience and knowledge, becoming your own influencer.

Your social media video posts should not just be all sales, sales, sales, there needs to be a mixture of advice, information, conversation starters, news about staff and getting to know you and your team.

Make use of Facebook and Instagram Live options to properly interact with your audience. I know a lot of you will feel self-conscious or embarrassed, but there really is nothing to fear and it is a great business tool. I started using Facebook Live during lockdown and it was a fantastic way to interact with my clients and keep reminding them I was there. 

It is also a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and professionalism and allow the people who follow you, but haven't yet been in for a treatment, get to know you which will encourage them to book in.

Instagram, in theory, is great for our industry. It is visual and that is so important for our industry as everything we do is so visual. I did some market research (which I repeat regularly and I urge you to do too) and found that most of my current clients don't use Instagram. However, I looked at the new clients I wanted to attract and Instagram seemed to be where they are at. 

I don't post as regularly on Instagram as I do Facebook, but I have picked up a few new clients from it. I think it is a useful resource and has the potential to work well for your business. For this, I pre-record videos or make reels to post mixed up with demos and informative talks.

However, we also have TikTok, which really seems to have surpassed Instagram and the others.  It is great entertainment; you can do a mixture of videos and images just like you can on Instagram and Facebook but it seems that videos are shared more readily from TikTok than anywhere else. 

People go on TikTok to watch other people's stuff, and this seems to be where it is at for a younger audience, many of whom are persuaded by these unqualified beauty “‘influencers'. 

So now is the time for you to start educating the younger audience and, as I said earlier, becoming your own type of influencer. 

Your videos can be really short and basic; make them punchy, to the point, add popular music, use popular hashtags for that day and post! 

If you can, post a video a day or every couple of days to build momentum, but obviously it is another job in your day. So just like scheduling Facebook posts, make a couple of videos when you have time so as you have these to post and drip feed as the week goes on. 

So when it comes to using video content to become your own influencer, find out where your clients look and focus your attention there, with the addition of TikTok. Educating your clients and influencing potential new ones will help to not only grow your business but also keep it relevant.