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21 Christmas salon social media marketing ideas

Time is your most valuable commodity – especially in frantic December. You know you need to market your business, but it’s just feels… TOO MUCH.

The run up to Christmas is a spectacular social media marketing opportunity for salons with everyone hunting for gift ideas, party-style inspiration and last-minute appointments. Business opportunities your salon, spa or clinic can’t afford to ignore.

Plus social use skyrockets around the holiday as people share the fun with family and friends. It’s the perfect time to raise your brand profile, shift retail and get seen by a new local audience on salon social.

But you don’t have to miss out. No matter how busy you are, here’s how to get your salon social sorted: quickly, easily and without any stress 🎅🏼

In this blog I look at how to:

  • Set your Christmas social media goals
  • Create a festive social marketing plan
  • Give you sparkling holiday post ideas
  • Schedule social posts weeks ahead
  • See what works best for your community
  • Make your salon social seasonal
  • Delegate social tasks successfully in December
  • Deal with comments (and complaints)
  • Measure your salon social success

 

Don’t miss out on profitable business:

 

The key to social media success at Christmas

I can’t say this loudly enough:

Get your marketing prep work done early before the December rush starts otherwise it’s unlikely to happen.

Aim to have at least 80% of your Christmas salon social posts created and scheduled before the December client rush begins.

 

#1. Set your salon social media business goals

It’s too easy to waste hours on your salon social and not make any significant difference to your hair or beauty business.

So decide your social media marketing goals for December now. And don’t forget to make them specific and measurable (S.M.A.R.T goals).

Here are a few of the ones I use with our agency clients:

  • Boost hair & beauty retail sales (by how many £s?)
  • Sell more salon Gift Cards (set a monetary target)
  • Get more bookings for January (what number are you aiming for?)
  • Build your database this December (increase to xx by 31 December)

 

#2. Create your Christmas social marketing plan

Now plan your social posts to reflect these goals, and decide what social advertising you need to invest in to achieve them.

Don’t be put off by the word ‘plan’. Keep it simple; just use the ideas in this blog to sketch out December’s social posts.

It’s not the plan that’s important, it’s the planning.
– Dr. Graeme Edwards

 

#3. Understand what your salon social audience love

Don’t rely on luck or guess work. Look back to see what social content worked best for your hair or beauty business in the past.

And especially last Christmas.

 

#4. Step into Christmas on your salon social

You dress your salon or spa for Christmas. So don’t forget to dress your social profiles too.

Charlotte Tilbury pushes gift ideas with this easy to copy Facebook cover photo.

For a quick inexpensive option, snap an evocative photo of your salon, clinic or spa decked out in its seasonal finery.

 

#5. Who is monitoring December social?

It’s going to be full-on in salon this December so decide now who is responsible for monitoring social media and, crucially, responding.

Bit obvious I hear you say. Maybe. But agreeing this now greatly reduces the chances of a major customer service blunder over this hectic period.

An online social whinge can soon escalate into public unpleasantness if left to fester. And that’s the very last thing you need.

 

Get ahead of the social game…

 

#6. Schedule salon social posts weeks ahead

Aim to create and schedule at least 80% of your December salon social in October and November.

Take advantage of Meta Business Suite’s forward schedule function for both Facebook and Instagram, and your posts will go live whilst you’re busy running your hair or beauty business.

 

#7. Capture the magic of Christmas in salon

Planning and scheduling your social media is critical to success, but do leave space to capture the spontaneity and fun of the holiday season.

Plan a 10 minute slot each day (or every other day) to take advantage of those last-minute social media marketing opportunities that crop up in salon. This way you won’t miss out on showcasing that gorgeous Yuletide bride, stunning hair colour or a merry set of festive nails on Instagram.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NAF! Salon (@nafsalon)

 

Sparkling ideas for salon social posts

Keep your social interesting and your audience more engaged by mixing your posts. Add some pop, fizz and sparkle with these Christmas post ideas…

 

#8. Promote your festive opening hours

Don’t forget to schedule social posts in promoting your longer December opening hours.

Start these Christmas opening posts in October, and use FOMO  to encourage followers to book early as we did for our client Sara Shoemark founder of the four multi-award winning GLOW beauty salons.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by GLOW Beauty (@glow_beauty_)

And here’s a step-by-step on how to update your Google Business Profile salon holiday opening hours so all salon marketing bases are covered.

 

#9. Shift last-minute or cancelled hair & beauty appointments

Get those irritating late cancellations rebooked in minutes. It’s just a case of remembering to post them on your social platforms when you’re dashing around.

Put a salon system in place to catch them so you don’t miss out on any seasonal profit. You can’t beat systems for making your business run smoothly. And profitably.

A salon system isn’t just for Christmas… find more ideas on setting up procedures, processes and systems that work.

 

#10. ‘Tis the season of goodwill

Share local charity news and help spread the word in your community – it’s the season of goodwill after all.

 

#11. Get snapping

Put time aside now to take photos and forward schedule for busy December days when you won’t have time.

Some ideas:

  • Before and after client photos: why not create some end of year ‘collections’ rather than just one-offs?
  • Behind the scenes Reels, Stories and videos of the team decorating your salon, clinic or spa for Christmas.
  • Clients enjoying festive cocktails, cakes and chocolates whilst being pampered.
  • The team in their Christmastide jumpers for TikTok or an Insta Reel.
  • Capture festive holiday events in salon.

There are more ideas below 👇🏽 too.

Don’t forget to always get clients’ permission, and tell them you’d like to use it on your salon social.

It’s been around a while but I love this post from Rockcliffe Hall Spa of Santa scheduled for Christmas Eve. It’s fun, promotes the brand and importantly could easily be staged weeks in advance.

 

#12. Market beauty and hair gift ideas on social

Promote your hair and beauty gift packs, Christmas candles and other seasonal goodies with photos taken in salon for that personal touch.

Always include:

  • price
  • an image
  • product size

Act fast or miss out: 

A recent poll revealed 48% of women and 33% of men start their Christmas shopping in November so start marketing your salon Gift Cards early.

I run through my top promotional ideas for selling Gift Cards in this blog post.

 

#13. Step-by-step Christmas hair and beauty guides

These go down a treat. Red carpet party glamour is always a winner with hair and makeup trends and tips.

If you haven’t time to produce your own then many of the hair and beauty product manufacturers have ‘How to’ videos at this time of year which you can link to direct from social.

Better still, create a website page with the video on it, do a link post on your social platforms and drive traffic to your website.

This brilliant video from Blue Tit salons isn’t for Christmas but I love its simplicity and it’s so easy for clients to watch and learn the technique. Again, it lends itself to being done well ahead of December – just add a glitzy festive backdrop.

 

#14. Get local on salon social

Build your local brand profile and make friends in your community by using seasonal news snippets from local businesses across all your social platforms.

Hopefully, they’ll return the compliment and talk about your hair and beauty business on their social media too.

 

#15. Run a salon social festive giveaway

A seasonal contest or giveaway is an easy way to build brand awareness locally. Again, the photos can all be taken and the posts written while the autumn leaves are still falling.

Salon Social Club members 👉🏼 head to my Giveaway Workshop for all the Ts and Cs, caption templates, ready-to-go graphics and email templates plus hands-on advice to run a successful giveaway.

 

#16. Salon selfie Christmas

Our obsession with the salon selfie continues, so harness it and host Christmas themed selfies on a sofa near you.

Or pop an empty picture frame on your wall, decorate with a festive twist and let clients snap the perfect Christmas selfie to post on their social platforms – it’s a marketing wrap. Remember to ask them to tag your business on their post.

 

#17. Hat tip to your team

They are going to be working their socks off in December so why not prepare and schedule some posts showcasing their work, thanking them and help fill their columns come January? It’s the least they deserve.

 

#18. Increase January bookings using salon social

Post, and advertise, your new year hair and beauty offers throughout November and December on your salon social to pep up a patchy January or February. It’s too late to wait to start marketing them in January.

Salon Social Club members: You’ll find everything you need to be fully booked in January in my New Year Offers Campaign-in-a-box. Done-for-you caption and graphic templates, actionable advice and detailed offers you can action now.

 

#19. Merry Christmas Everybody

Show you care by scheduling a greeting for Christmas morning to all your fans, and again for 1st January.

This post from Rockcliffe Hall Spa works well with its warm friendly feel of teddy snuggling amongst the Christmas decorations sporting his festive jumper. The best thing for me is that the photo is easily staged and taken weeks before the 25th ensuring you’re ahead of the marketing game.

 

All I want for Christmas is you… to engage on social

 

#20. Don’t ignore your followers

December may be manic, but replying to social media comments promptly is a marketing-must. Decide who is monitoring social, when and how often.

Ideally reply to every post comment. But if you’re struggling for time at least ‘like’ comments to show them you’ve read them and appreciate them.

 

#21. WOW salon customer service

A manic December isn’t a reason to let customer care slip online.

Ensure someone is responsible for checking social alerts throughout the day. If a client is asking, via social, to change an appointment it’s too late dealing with it the next day. Set a salon system to look out for eleventh hour appointment queries and stick to it.

Deal with any complaints via social media immediately too. You’ll find some practical tips on this here.

 

What worked for your salon social this Christmas?

And finally before shutting the salon door for the holidays, pop a note on your calendar for January to check and measure what worked for your biz on social.

Then rinse and repeat next year…

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