2018 – The year of change for salons on Facebook

The Facebook Algorithm has changed yet again! Argghh!… and it’s the biggest change marketers all over the globe are talking about right now. This change is something EVERY business in the hair industry needs to be aware of, so put down the coffee, find a quiet spot and pay attention. You need to read this.

On the 12th January, Mark Zuckerberg publicly announced changes to the way businesses use Facebook. This change focuses on organic reach of existing followers on Facebook Pages. In essence, NO post uploaded to your Facebook Business Page will acquire an organic audience reach unless it propels a natural conversation between friends within the comments feed.

Why? If you’ve noticed over the last 12 months, our Facebook feeds have become congested with meaningless video, posts inviting people to “like if..” “comment if you…” “tag a friend who…” and so on. This is what is known as Engagement Bait. These posts have stopped the natural engagement we all willingly shared with friends and the socialness of what Facebook was originally created for.

These meaningless posts and videos are shared by business pages. Whilst many business pages have posted meaningful educational content over the years, the meaningless posts have broken through the filter to congest our feeds more than ever. The result – people scrolling through their Facebook feeds becoming more and more isolated and unresponsive. More people not interacting with friends, not conversing in reality or virtually, but are instead living in a virtual world of video.

To stop this, and to push the platform towards conversations and positive interactions with friends, business page posts will only be seen by existing followers and their friends if it creates a conversation between friends within the post itself. For those of you who post in a Business Facebook Group, this affects you too. This algorithm change impacts all posts.

Creating conversations between friends within posts is VERY, VERY DIFFICULT FOR A HAIR SALON TO ACHIEVE.

There are two other ways to guarantee your posts to be seen.

1. BUSINESS PAGE SETTINGS

Tell your clients to change their settings regarding your business. Tell them to go to your page, click on FOLLOWING and change the setting to SEE FIRST. This will ensure ALL posts are seen at the top of their newsfeed whenever you post. However, this is something that cannot be abused. Like any email subscription, if you receive too many posts in your inbox, you will unsubscribe. Think of your Facebook Business Page as a subscription. The content you are posting to your feed must be highly relevant to your existing clients. If it is not, then don’t post at all. I recommend you post once a week only.

2. FACEBOOK ADVERTISING

Facebook Advertising is the best way to reach your target audience or existing clients consistently in their newsfeeds. If you’re serious about acquiring new clients or upselling to existing clients, you must be advertising consistently within your community. Like any community, TRUST is something that builds over a period of time. One advertisement or two each year on the platform is not going to cut it. Your Facebook advertisements need to be compelling, vibrant and assuring with a clear CALL-TO-ACTION each time.

I strongly encourage you to map out your Facebook Advertising campaigns for 2018 and create a budget. This will help you structure your social media efforts and provide clarity and confidence with your advertising objective and spend.

This year Hairpin Digital is rolling out workshops across the country to help plan, structure and implement social media strategies for salons over a 12-month period.  View our upcoming workshops and join one near you.

If you own a Hair/Beauty Salon… join our FREE Facebook Group, where you can ask questions, learn from each other and stay up to date with the best social media tips and tricks in your industry.

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