I’ve seen way too many 15-year-olds posing as hair experts on video blogs and too few beauty professionals showing the world who’s truly qualifi ed to give their opinions about salon products and services. Equally distressing, with each viewing of these amateur productions, our expertise becomes more diminished in the minds’ of consumers. It’s time to make our voice and opinions heard.
CREATE A BLOGGING PROGRAM
Until the last few years, it was fi nancially impossible to fund a regular video program. Today, all it takes is a computer, camera and microphone. This advancement is such a tremendous asset in so many ways, but in others, it’s disastrous. Case in point: Amateur beauty bloggers are now teaching hundreds of thousands of our clients how to care for their hair and why cheap drug stores products are just as good—make that better—than what they can buy in the salon.
My suggestion: Make every willing stylist on your team a video beauty blogger. Coach them, organize the fi lming and watch your entire salon become the talk of not only your clientele, but also potential clients in your area and the world. Review new products; demonstrate new and existing services; show how to do easy hairstyles; and offer solutions to common problems.
Tips on Set Prep
Make sure that you always remain a cut above the imposters. Clean and organize your salon before fi lming and carefully check to see exactly what the camera will be picking up. Don’t forget to straighten all styling chairs and check for smudges on your mirrors. Always light the hair and face to accentuate your work and eliminate shadows. Doing these simple prep steps will give you an immediate advantage, since so many amateur bloggers are viewed sitting in poorly lit, messy bedrooms or—worse yet—bathrooms.
Where to Post
Post your videos on your own You Tube channel, which you can then link to your website and Facebook page. There’s a simple step-by-step video produced by YouTube on how to do this:
youtube.com/watch?v=5WRaXrNdYiI.
SPREAD THE NEWS
Just because you’ve made some great video beauty blogs doesn’t mean that users will know about them. What to do? Broadcast your video blogs to your clients via email, Twitter and Facebook; reward them with small gifts when they share your videos with friends; give your total program a strong marketing spin that makes it stand apart from the expert wannabes; and alert local and regional editors. Not surprisingly, doing these things will not only attract many new clients to your door, but also serve as a huge morale booster for your stylists, who will become publicly lauded for their expertise and even recognized outside your salon. “Oh, I know you! Don’t you….”
ABOUT
Patrick McIvor is a HOT Advisor, Matrix Artistic Director and color specialist. A confessed cultural junkie, he also provides business consulting and classes on how to leverage new technology to connect with online and real-life communities. (youtube.com/user/patrickmcivor) (twitter.com/patrickmcivor)
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