Why not?  It’s easy to set up, and although most mobile check-in services are primarily populated by younger, web-savvy techies (only 1- 4% of the on-line adult population according has used the leading on-line check-in service), location-based marketing is still the hot ‘comer’ and early adopters will profit from the small effort it takes to set it up.  Also, many of your clients/customers may well include these younger mobile-heads.

Also, don’t forget Google gets fed the ‘Local Business’ listings from Facebook.

First, You Decide

Important … You’ve already (hopefully) read our recent Facebook post on making sure your personal profile is protected from ‘friends’ randomly tagging you using Facebook ‘Places’.

On to getting your business ‘on the map’ and tied into your Facebook page.

How to set up your ‘Place’ on Facebook

You can only access ‘Places’ from a mobile interface.  We suggest you use Facebook Touch access on your desktop for this part, it’s more convenient than the Facebook mobile interface on your phone (I hate little keyboards).

• Select ‘Places’.
• Search for your business name – Unless someone else has put their version of your business name there, you won’t find it.
• If it doesn’t exist, add it.  – Type in the name you want your business to have.  Another reason to do this now is to ensure your business name gets listed as you wish it to be, not as someone else adding your business name decided it for you (although you can make changes when you claim your business.)
• Put your business description info in at this point.  – I still haven’t figured out how to go back and add or edit the description field so now is the time to do this.  (If anyone reading does, please post your comment)
• Lastly, claim Your ‘Place’ on Facebook.  – Log into Facebook on your computer.  Search for the name of your business you entered in ‘Places’.  Click on the Places selection.  At the bottom of the screen, click on the question, “Is this your business?”.
• This part may surprise you.  Apparently, if FB doesn’t find your listed phone number you have to send them an official doc for your business.  The choices ar:
  • Articles of Certificate of Incorporation (for a corporation)
  • Certificate of Formation (for a partnership)
  • Local Business License (issued by your city, county, or state)
  • Better Business Bureau (BBB) Accreditation

For starters, Gowalla, Foursquare, Booyah (MyTown, Nightclub City), and Yelp will integrate with ‘Places’.

For more help on the topic, Facebook has its own help on Facebook, or you can download a PDF from them here.

Share Your Comments and Questions here.

We recently shared some knowledge with our class at the American Board of Certified Haircolorists (ABCH) Educational ‘Summit’.  For us it was a snapshot of 40 education-hungry colorists and what they knew about using social media to help them promote their business.  Only a few understood it much at all.

Of course everyone was on Facebook, but few people knew beyond the photos/videos tabs, the wall, and how to send messages.  Only one person had a plan and strategy for being there and was using it to attract more clients to their salon.

Back to Beauty School – Social Media Beauty School.

You know you can’t create a ‘look’ for your client without knowing the ‘techniques’ of how to get hair to do what you want it to do, right?  You have to know how to use a comb, scissors, razor, brush, dryer, iron, and chemicals before you can even begin to craft a look.  Each ‘look’ uses slightly different techniques and some tools more than others.

It’s no different for social media.  You have to understand the tools and what they can do for you before you can use them collectively to cultivate your own ‘look’ using your PR (and your marketing in general).

Bottom line: Go back to school. Use the same mindset you used when you knew you wanted to get started in the beauty industry.  Break out the books and mannequin heads (just kidding about the mannequin heads), and start reading, learning about your tools, and practicing basic skills.

Make the Investment

You aren’t going to learn about, or get good at social media strategy or technique in a couple of sittings, or with someone’s ‘get-rich-in-friends-quick’ book.  Think about it.  It took you over a thousand hours to learn just the basics of cosmetology in beauty school, didn’t it?

What makes you think you don’t need to approach social media with just a little bit of the same dedication you put into learning your beauty skills?  OK, not 1,000 hours, but still … take it seriously.  Start with the basics … read, and practice.

Resources

There are zillions of resources for information and technical expertise in each of the social media disciplines out there.  There’s certainly no shortage of internet marketing and social media gurus (most have become experts in the last year or so) vying for your dollar.

Who do you trust?  Where do you find them?  It takes a time and searching to find the good guys.

Save your money.  Read for free, you’ll learn whose stuff you really want to buy along the way.  Most everything you need to know is already out there and costs nothing.  You just need to find it and that’s what the download link is all about.

Here it is … and Yes, It’s Free

We’ve saved you a lot of time and searching by assembling a starter list of ‘trusted’ resources for Facebook, Twitter, LInkedIn, and Blogging knowledge.  These are tried and true experts who are really experts.  These are the people we learned from.  They’ve been at it the longest and have risen to the top of the heap.  We prepared it for our class at ABCH and it’s filled with great people and information to get you moving ahead.

Some First Ideas for you to Consider

• Subscribe to BeautyPRpro and join our fan page on Facebook.  (Had to get a plug in for our blog ).
• Make the commitment to spend one hour a day reading and practicing.
• Start with Facebook.  Read up on how the individual pieces and parts of Facebook work. You’ll find much of that information in the writings of the experts in the download PDF below.
  • Settings (account, privacy, application) and their impact on all the other parts of Facebook.
  • News feeds (top news, most recent),
  • Friend filters
  • Events
  • Messaging
  • Groups
  • Profiles (personal and Fan pages)
• Browse and read the articles and posts in the download PDF about how other companies and people are using Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging, and Twitter to grow their fans and build their businesses.
• Subscribe to some of the blogs of the experts you will be reading and follow in their footsteps.  They’ve been there and freely share how it all works.
• Questions?  I sure hope so.  Drop by BeautyPRpro on Facebook and our blog.  Ask the new found experts whose articles you’ll be reading from the download list by leaving comments/questions on their blogs and websites.  All of us that blog love to hear from you and know that what we are giving away is being appreciated and doing what it is supposed to do.

Do you have a strategy you’d care to share?

Although this post is aimed a bit more at those who are newer to the game of getting media attention and what to do with it once you get it, we suspect a few old-timers could also use some brush-up on their interview skills as well.  Only the questions might change.

OK, you’ve been doing your homework.

You have been sending your local news releases out regularly when suddenly one day the front desk calls and tells you a local TV news person you’ve been wooing (who noticed you originally because you sent them a VIP card and a great news release) is on the line.  Wow!  … flurry of excitement.  You hurry to your office, take a deep breath, and pick up the phone.

You discover they are interested in the news release you sent out about your upcoming local charitable event.  Woo-Hoo!  Lightning strikes …. a ‘magic moment’ opportunity.

Are You Ready for it?

Being prepared to ‘make the sale’ to someone in the media means you need to be comfortable and conversant talking about two things right at that moment.

Number 1 – Your Recent News Release

Your caller assumes you are the subject matter expert (SME).  That’s why they called you.  If your name is on the release, on first contact people grant you that authority.

How well-versed and conversant you are on your topic, and how you come across answering their questions is important.  Having background knowledge on your cause, thus your passion about it, and knowing what you wrote in your own news release goes a long way to preserving that credibility.  Too many, “I don’t know” or, “I’m not sure” answers eats away at your credibility and may diminish interest.

Number 2 – You!

Your passion and personality, your ability to share who you are, what you believe in, and what you are doing in an easy-to-follow, simple explanation is important.  This takes pre-call, pre-interview rehearsal time practicing your answers to some of the fairly standard questions you might expect to be asked.  You need to ‘get your lines down’ as actors say.

You know the media likes ‘brief’.  They appreciate the quick-communicating ‘sound bite’.  These ‘bites’ are the most likely phrases to get ‘quoted’ in print, or edited into TV interview moments during segments.  Having a few ‘sound bites’ at your fingertips is good.

Preparing to Share You

There are some fairly standard questions you might expect an interviewer to ask.  Having a few pre-considered answers with those ‘sound bites’ at your fingertips, improves your chances of coming off as a fun interview during a magic moment.  Here’s a short list of questions designed to stimulate your thinking down that track.  How would you answer these?

• Tell me a little about yourself.
• Why did you choose to become a salon professional?
• What is really special and unique about your salon?
• What are your thoughts on what we’re seeing in hair fashion this season?  Where do you see it going next season?  Beyond?  Why?
• What is it you offer your clients that’s unusual and not easily found at other salons?
• Tell me about the community/cause-related activities you and your salon are involved with.
• As a professional, what products do you think are absolute ‘must-haves’ for your clients?
• Are there any simple regimens you can recommend your clients to do every day that will make a significant difference to how they look during the day?

Get Practice, and Have Some Fun Too.

Remember when you played ‘pretend’ as a kid.  A friend ‘pretended’ to be someone else, and you ‘pretended’ you were someone else, and the two of you pretended together.  It’s what actors do every day they are working … they play pretend, rehearsing to become natural ‘pretending’.  Playing pretend works … and it’s fun. J So here’s our suggestion:

• Find a friend you trust that you can ‘play’ with.
• Both of you sit down and develop good answers to the above questions.
• Stick a video camera down and turn it on. (gasp)
• Have your friend pretend to be the TV interviewer interviewing you.
• Now switch roles.
• Do that over several times.

Did you laugh a lot?

How horrified were you? 

Did you both get any better after a few repeats and answer rewrites?

We’ll bet with practice you get really good at this … when it doesn’t count … while you’re playing.  You’re also going to feel so much better going into your next ’magic moment’

Share Some of Your Fun with this Exercise. Comments? Experiences?

Like this post?  Click Like and join us on Facebook.

Those of us in the PR game a decade ago remember when internet press release distribution was a paid service offered mostly by PR industry dominant media services.  Bacon’s & Burelle’s  (renamed Cision and Burelles Luce respectively).  These industry biggies offer PR professionals and companies full-service  media research, lists, & clipping & monitoring for blogs, print and TV.  In the past couple of years, excellent upstart Vocus joined the battle for our hearts and minds.

These major media services all have annual subscription fees that although not inexpensive (read thousands), to their credit and favor, have all designed affordable packages for small businesses that are serious about their PR.  They’re worth your time to learn about.

Dominant Internet-Only Distribution Services

Like Cision and Burelle’s above, PRNewswire and PR Web were pioneers of the internet press release.  They offer a variety of enhanced services that assist less experienced news release writers in creating and distributing news releases as well as additional packages of distribution you probably wouldn’t be able to access otherwise.  Again, well worth the value until you get to know more about optimizing your news releases.  Their cost varies from $80-$400 per release.  At last check, PRNewswire had an annual membership fee.  PR Web had no membership fee.

Two Benefits of Internet Distributed News Releases

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Search engines ‘like’ optimized press releases.  Well written, they are good subject matter and, well designed, have the right SEO ingredients to become ‘backlinks’ to your website.  You’ve experienced the result when you do a web search and find multiple links (from the same domains) with your search term in the title.  If it’s a good headline (Title) and ‘Description’ (first paragraph) , searchers click through to have a peek and you end up with a website visitor.
2. Journalists doing story research use the web extensively looking for research information, subject matter experts and fact checking. For the same reasons as in #1, they might grab your news.  Here’s where your content really becomes critical.  Fluffy copy, puffery and overly descriptive adjectives need not apply.  You can find good press release writing tips at Bill Stoller’s website.  Smart Guy Bill.

A Plethora of Free

In the Supernova of internet access in the last decade, literally hundreds of free press release distribution services have surfaced (maybe thousands?).  Which ones to use?

Here’s a little help.  We’ve gathered the following sites that should meet your needs nicely.  Invariably we’ve missed some ‘newer-gooder’ ones, so drop a comment below and we’ll update this list.

Free Press Release Websites

We’re not plowing new turf gathering this kind of information so here’s some good homework with a top 50 list assembled by Avangate who has Google Page Rank ordered them.

Our Own Current List:

• PR.com
• PRLog.org
• Free-Press-Release.com
• PressReleasePoint.com
• OpenPR.com
• I-Newswire.com
• ClickPress.com
• 1888PressRelease.com

Pitchengine.com – A Suggestion

With a tsunami of social media washing over the world, it wasn’t surprising to find an enterprising young person (Jason Kintzler) creating a website to help both bloggers and press release writers gather their related material (photos,  videos, print material and other media, into one convenient resource and link(s) offering helpful, organized and ‘enforced’ SEO guidance. That’s pitchengine.

You get to post your ‘stuff’ for 30 days for free or you can pay $35 a month to keep an unlimited amount of your material for as long as you continue your subscription.  We recommend it.  Our Pitchengine links always pop to the top of the charts.

Writing a Good SEO Optimized News Release

Whoa!  A subject for another day.  We’ll start in working on that one for you this weekend and link it to this post when finished.  We think you’ve got enough to keep you busy for days.

Share Your Information

If you discover valuable new resources everyone should know about, comment below and we’ll update our list for everyone’s benefit.

What Results Have You Had From Your On-Line News Submissions?

Photo credit: trevarthan

This guest post is by Bruce Rigney, owner of Rigney Graphics, a full-service marketing communication design and branding firm, established in 1982, and located in Old Pasadena, California. Sharon and I have had several occasions to work together with them on behalf of our clients. Rigney Graphics’ portfolio and more information about the company may be viewed on their website at www.rigneygraphics.com

Part 1 of this series is here.
 

Beyond Your Homepage – Which Way Did They Go?

After viewing your website’s homepage, your visitor has to decide where to go next. Given you’ve captured their interest, they now want to know more about you, your product, or your service. Your website design must guide them to:

• Contact you.
• Make an appointment.
• Buy your product(s).
• Give you their contact information.

If your homepage navigation is well designed, your visitor should easily find their next area of interest and click on it. That interest is definitely influenced by your website’s design and structure. The use of ‘clickable’ features to bring them directly to special offers or benefit helps your visitor swiftly find their way to your contact or purchase pages.

The homepage for www.lanadil.com has a “See the Magic” clickable feature

on the right along with several clickable features along the bottom of the page

Short and to the Point

A web page is not a blog … term paper … or an essay, graded on how many words you can string together to make a short story long. You drive away visitors and stifle interest with long-winded company missions, credentials, product descriptions, and lengthy news stories about the company or product.

Too many websites look like strange hybrids of information source, advertisement, and brochure all wrapped up in a video game. Your visitor wants information, and they want it ‘NOW’. When you write for a web page, think “short attention span.” As with any advertising medium, you have 1/4 second to get their attention.

As an example, magazine articles are most often ‘scanned’ … viewed rapidly by the reader as they glance at a headline, a photo, read a caption or sub-head, and perhaps an enlarged “pull quote” before speeding on to the next article or ad. Your web page should afford the same ‘instant’ messaging to its visitors.

Photo by redactie ikvader.nl

What They Read … Is What They Get

When your visitor arrives at a page of your website and is confronted with a large gray mass of text, you have lost them. Break up blocks of text to help your visitors immediately locate their area of interest on the page.

• Subheads: These are usually in a different color from the text and help to define the text below them. The visitor can use the subhead as a guide to locate that part of the text that is of interest and will not be put off by thinking that all the text on the page will have to be read to get the information needed.

• Bulleted Items: A paragraph which contains a list (of benefits, uses, services offered, credentials, clients, etc.) should be broken apart into bulleted listings which enable the visitor to immediately locate relevant items. No longer a blur of text, information will ‘pop off the page’ for the visitor.

• Secondary Navigation: When you have a list of services or types of products, you can employ a secondary navigation element to the page, often on the side of the page. This allows the visitor to narrow his or her search quickly and get right to what they are looking for. As an example, on a services page for a beauty salon, rather than display a long page with a continuous listing of services, the services page could have a general statement about the services of the salon. Then, on the side of the page, a boxed area or sidebar can list each of the individual services where the visitor can click on a listed item to link directly to data about the specific service.

Our site design for www.clearcorrect.com displays secondary

navigation links on the right side of many of its pages.

Eliminate the Negative – Reverse Type

Avoid blocks of copy in reversed type. White on black or on any other color, is almost impossible to read in quantity on a website. A statement, headline or sub-headline is fine, but be brief, and of sufficient size to be immediately recognizable. If you want to hide or obscure your message, reverse the text.

Visitor Drop-Off – Lines Too Long

Two-thirds of the way across the line of type your visitor ‘drops off’ and loses track of what they are reading. Reader drop-off rate is relative to the length of the line of text and the size of the type. If you must run text the full width of the page, you must increase the type size to balance the length of the line.

Drop-off is a significant design factor for the new wider website standard for the larger monitors now in general use. Designers must artfully balance artwork, sidebars, navigation columns and the use of shorter columns to avoid a layout that requires the reader to scan a full length wider web page.

Call to Action

Your website should contain “calls to action”. Places where you ask your visitor to contact you, or purchase a product. These can be placed on the homepage, or on any pages where it is probable that the visitor might be receptive to being guided toward that action. These calls to action are usually presented as prominently displayed links which direct the visitor to “Buy Now” or “Call Today” or “Contact Us.”

Remember, your site was not only built to inspire confidence in your products or services, but as a lead-generating or income-generating tool to grow your business. Here’s a good example:

This page from www.lilash.com has five calls to action: A “Purchase Lilash” navigation bar

on the left, a “Shop Online” bar at the top right, and text links at the end of three of the paragraphs.

Who is Your Visitor? – Capture Their Contact Info.

Many salon/spa sites are not set up for online sales. The main goal is to generate enough interest to get a visitor to make an appointment or respond to an offer. If they’ve gotten to your website, they are already a ‘warm’ lead and you want to capture their contact information to re-contact them if you miss them this time around.

Ideally, what you want is your visitor’s name, address, phone number and email address, but most of us are reluctant to divulge all that on our first contact. Since our goal is to be able to continue to communicate to them, obtaining an email address only is a victory.

Once their contact info has been captured in any form, you are able to continue to stimulate their interest via email. Such items as:

• News stories about your business
• Customer successes or endorsements
• New product and/or service offerings

All of these encourage a potential client to try your product or service and eventually become part of your ever-expanding clientele.

Get Help

If your website is not measuring up to expectations and generating solid leads to new clients, you need help from a professional design group with proven success in upgrading website effectiveness.

Part 3 of this series (coming up) addresses what to look for in the selection of a website design firm.

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Twitter – Your ‘Aha!’ moment?

OK gang. Many of you have confessed to being Twitter ‘challenged’.  In our travels (and in the research) we’ve seen many who begin to twitter, then stop … their twitter names lying fallow with no tweets for months.  No surprise. Twitter itself has not been that helpful to newbies and most people many don’t have the motivation or time to scrounge for Twitter knowledge.  Yet, despite its own shortcomings of Spartan web interface and less than helpful user info, Twitter has exploded.  Both individuals and businesses are making good use of it.

I hear, “I really don’t ‘get’ Twitter”, “How do you follow all the messages from all those people?”, and “Who should I follow?” … “How do I ensure I don’t miss tweets sent to me in that huge pile of tweets?” … the list goes on and on.  You would think something so Spartan and arcane wouldn’t catch on like it has, but it certainly has, and by the millions.  But, don’t take my word for it.

Bite-Sized Twitter Help

We’re going to break down the topic of Twitter into a series several writings over the next few weeks. If you are a stylist or colorist, esthetician, nail technician, salon owner or independent contractor, distributor or manufacturer, hopefully, this series will help you ‘get’ Twitter, and begin putting it to work for you … and your business.

If you dig in just a bit here in part 1, you’ll have your ‘Aha!’ moment.  You’ll also be collecting valuable resources you can to use to get out there and use Twitter for the power it has to reach the people you want to reach, and you’ll know where to go to get answers and help to continue your journey.

Don’t miss the entire series. If you’re not subscribed here yet, please do so now.  I’ll wait

Give a Man a Fish …

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.

Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime “.

Along the way we will be linking you to the writings of many individuals. But, there are two individuals who have led the way for us to becoming  more knowledgeable about social media in general, and specifically in blogging and Twittering.

• Darren Rouse (@problogger  www.problogger.com and www.twitip.com).
• Chris Garrett (@chrisgarrett www.chrisg.com).

You couldn’t do better than a free subscription to those three blogs (No $ affiliation here).

There is a wealth of information clearly written by many other good minds and I don’t plan on paraphrasing anyone’s writings, but will link you directly to them.  Our job is to deal primarily with beauty industry specific information and recommendations.  If you have questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section of this post, or call us.

What is Twitter?

Wikipedia defines it thus, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service enabling users to send and read messages known as tweets.  Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers.  Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website or external applications.”

In short, Twitter handles three basic types of messages:

• A ‘public’ message typed into the “What are you doing?” box at the top will be seen by all your ‘followers’.  (e.g. “Reading: Weird Frog Facts http://bit.ly/x13Kj“)
• A ‘public reply or message’ to a specific follower (@twittername). Using the ‘@twittername’ at the beginning of your tweet ensures your tweet will most likely not be missed by the recipient.  (e.g. “@sharonandalex I’ll meet you in the hotel lobby – Tuesday at 11am”). Your reply message will also be seen by all your followers.
• A ‘private reply’ or private message (‘DM twittername’ or ‘D twittername’), is seen only by the follower you have sent it to.  (e.g. “DM twittername  My checking account number 777-4444-22″)

That’s what Twitter does …  I knew you could handle it. 

Setting up your Twitter account

OK.  You’re ready.  Here are two tutorial posts for the mechanics of setting yourself up.

1. From Twitip.com
2. From AgentGenius.com

I’ll wait here till you get back.

Pretty straightforward.   But here are a few things to keep in mind while you’re setting up.

About Your Profile

Your ‘profile’ is an important ingredient of how people perceive you on Twitter. People want to know something about you to help them decide if they want to follow you or not.  What you put into your profile settings helps us discover you, and why you are on Twitter.

For the record, before I decide to follow someone I do two things:

1. I scan their last 20 + tweets.  Are they interesting and/or helpful or are they time-wasters?  (“Enjoying a hamburger watching American Idol” or “Want 1,000 of followers in 10 days? Link here” – uh, thanks, I’ll pass)  (“Reading about NAHA winners: http://www.probeauty.org/naha/finalists/” – that’s more like it).
2. Next I click their web reference link (here’s ours).  What is their motivation for being on Twitter?  What does it tell me about them?  Given those two pieces, I elect to either follow them or ignore them by not following them in return.  95% of the time they’ll stop following you in a day or two when you don’t follow back. More later on followers and following later.

When I get my email notification from Twitter that I have a new follower, follow the link and see their profile has: no photo, no bio info, is full of self-serving or silly tweets, or nothing but sales messages …  goodbye.   Many are automated social media guru follower ‘hunters’ chasing down potential prospects.  Good for them?  Not good for me.  I want people following (and who I follow) who are real. I want people who bring value to me (and I to them) and with whom I can have a ‘conversation’.

Your Profile Details

Your Twitter ‘User Name’

This is what people use to direct a message to you.  Your ‘handle’ is very important.  What does your Twitter name convey about you?  Keep in mind that Twitter is about people and companies.  Names are always a safest, clearest, and best bet.  You will be judged by the handle you choose.

• ‘@getrichquick’ – You tell me
• ‘@sharonandalex’ – Gee, they sound like nice guys.
• ‘@yourbizname’ – I know exactly who they are.

Important Note: Choose your name wisely.  Once selected, that’s it.  You are locked in.  Change the name?  Lose your followers.

Your Photo (Avatar)

The power of the avatar is large.  How do you want people to see you?  Are you friendly-looking?  What image of you does your picture convey?  Family man/woman?  Smiling wamth?  Silly sense of humor?  Goofball?  Unlike your name, you can always change your photo/avatar.

Your ‘One Line Bio’

A very short (160 characters) summary of who you are and what you are all about.  (Check out a few examples: @pozasalon, @beautyscientist, @BecciRenfro).

Your ‘More Info URL’ (web location)

A link to a website, Google Profile or someplace on the web where people can learn more about you.

Your location

This is info that helps people know where you are geographically.

Protect Your Tweets?

I understand caution on the web, but protecting your tweets is a roadblock where people cannot follow you until you have approved them.  Personally, I most often bypass folks who protect their tweets.  Too much extra effort and too little time.  I’d rather have folks follow me easily.  I always evaluate them before following them back anyway so why block possible opportunities.  I can always unfollow and/or block.  It’s always my option … always your choice.

Creating your own Twitter Background  (Not mandatory.)

This is a ‘nice to have’, not a must do. When you get to our Twitter page you see our own background creation, not one of the standard pages provided by Twitter. Like I said, not mandatory, but an opportunity for you to share even more about who you are and what you do with your Twitter visitor. If you have time to spare and want to create your own, try these web resources..

• Mashable’s good info
• FreeTwitterDesigner
• Newbtech’s helpful page
• Create a background with PowerPoint

Who Should I Follow?

Our next post in this Twitter series will delve into this topic at greater length, but let’s start you out with some ‘quality’ follows right now.  Here is a ‘starter’ list of some interesting people & businesses, a few generic , and an assortment of beauty industry related ‘tweeple’ who are good examples of good Twitter citizens.

Note: For the moment, don’t bother following every Tom, Dick, or Harry social media ‘expert’ just to build followers, unless all you care about is having lots of followers.  You won’t believe how many ‘experts’ wants your eyeballs and your money. When you’re through these first couple of posts and have spent time poking around Twitter on your own, you’ll know who’s who.

Non-Beauty Industry Follow Suggestions

• @chrisbrogan  (Good social media info and more).
• @problogger (Good social media info [Also has the best Twitter blog I know at www.twitip.com).
• @copyblogger (Good writing info).
• @microgeist (Interesting stuff, sorta techy, but not too).

Beauty Industry Follow Suggestions

• @beautyjunkies
• @beautyscientist
• @BecciRenfro.
• @becomegorgeous
• @BSDiva
• @dwightmiller
• @everydayhair
• @haironthebrain
• @HairsHowMag
• @hairstyle_tweet
• @HelloBeauty
• @imagosalon
• @misssalon_usa
• @modernsalon
• @newbeauty
• @pozasalon
• @rebekah_king
• @RobinGribbin
• @salontoday,
• @sharonandalex
• @thebeautybrains

Tweetdeck Alert

Even though Twitter tools is part 3 in the series, I can't. leave you now without suggesting that you download and begin to use Tweetdeck to help manage your Twitter time. For me, it is one of the easiest way to work with Twitter. There are many other options to come later. You will need to download and install Adobe Air first though. Just follow the instructions on the Tweetdeck website. Well worth the effort.

Update to Post:Excellent Video from Darren Rouse

• Twitter Tips for Beginners [VIDEO]
• Timing  Your tweets (A short read)

It’s 40 minutes and quite complete. Grab a drink and relax. Worth it.

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• Part 2 – Followers & Following
• Part 3 – Twitter Tools Make Life with Twitter Easier (future post)

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It’s great to see salons and spas taking on the recession’s summer season with some sizzlin’ hot PR ideas that your clients – and the media – think are just plain ‘cool’.  Gone are the days when the term ‘slow summer’ in the salon was expected, and accepted until the ‘back to school’ crowd brought business back to life.  Now, enterprising salon owners take the ‘offense’ against the dreaded slow season by thinking fresh with great ideas that keep clients connected … and coming back!

No more allowing clients to forget about or abandon regular salon and spa services ’till Fall rolls around.  Keeping the client flow consistently moving year ’round is entirely possible – but it means a year ’round love affair between your creativity and your activity on that PR calendar!  Summer no longer needs to be a ‘dead zone’ – but rather  just another cool season of  hot sizzle and substance at your salon or spa!

FOUR SIZZLIN’ HOT SUMMER PR IDEAS THAT ARE VERY COOL!

(… and hold your clients’ interest in ‘you’).

Summer Sizzle Idea #1: A Cool Client Event!

‘Hats off” again to Changing Heads Salon in Tappan, New York for constantly reinventing the PR/promotional wheel to suit the climate, the client and the time of year. Imaginative salon owner Bob Press and team just kicked off the summer (and July 4^th holiday weekend) with a Client Appreciation Evening.  Bob e-mailed all his clients and the local media, pulling out all the stops for them with an evening of breezy Summer jazz, wine and appetizers that didn’t quit from 4pm – 9pm.

Entertainment was live with a group called ‘aj’ (ahhsh) and clients were encouraged to ‘introduce a friend to Changing Heads couture salon’.  Co-sponsors included nearby local businesses, ‘The 76 House’ and Grape D’Vine. We discussed ‘partnering’ with other area businesses in an earlier post. To find out more from Bob, e-mail him:bob@changingheads.com.

Just in from Changing Heads while I was writing this:  Wouldn’t ‘ya know…just as I’m getting ready to post, I get another Summer Sizzle Tip from Bob Press to keep their ‘guests’ mindful of advance booking salon services. Basically, the salon e-mails clients their team’s Summer vacation schedule.  This ‘Vacation Notice’ helps clients know when their stylist/colorist/esthetician will be away and says: “We hope this helps to schedule your appointments over the Summer and we look forward to seeing you.”  The Changing Heads Team

Summer Sizzle Idea #2:  A Cool Product Promotion!

Scruples Professional Technical Educator and stylist Greg Lamb of Visible Changes Hair Salon in Dresden, TN is making the entire Summer (July and August) a perfect opportunity to offer his color clients free product  and reminder to book their color appointments. With Color, Highlights or Lowlight services, his salon’s clients get FREE a Scruples Color Shampoo and Conditioner.

Now, to be totally cool, Greg has Facebook-ed his clients and the media about his Summer promotion with this message:

Subject: July and August Promotion

“Know you are treating your new color with the respect it deserves.”

As a color client myself (here in Southern CA), I say that this message got my attention on Facebook.  Yes, I care about my color, I (and my hair) deserve respect, and I always LOVE some free product!  Greg then went on to finish his message with the rest of the product promo details mentioned above.  Believe me, if I were a client at Visible Changes, I’d be booking that color appointment now!  Want to learn more? Visit Greg’s Business Profile Page (formerly Fan Page) ‘Greg at Visible Changes Hair Salon‘.  It’s great to see more us in the industry beginning to use social media to reach our clients.

Summer Sizzle Idea #3: A Cool Community Cause!

And like all the seasons, those important community causes continue to go on and need year ’round support in terms of time, talent, and donations.  We chose to cite a beauty school as a great example of how more salons, spas and schools might be spending their summer in an effort to support their community while staying connected to their targeted audiences.  Accordingly, the Bellus Academy (formerly Poway Academy Of Beauty & Spa) in Poway, CA (owner: Lynelle Lynch), continues its on-going local effort behind ‘CUT IT OUT’, a national program of the ‘Salons Against Domestic Abuse Fund‘ dedicated to training and mobilizing salon professionals to recognize the symptoms of domestic abuse and be able to provide the simple information needed to help their ‘abused’ clients find help and safety.

A local ‘CUT IT OUT’ Industry Advisory Board has been formed and meets at the Bellus Academy regularly – including and especially this Summer (July) – to discuss multi-lingual webinars and regional training opportunities plus planning for Salon-A-Thon activities in every region. This promotes awareness, builds partnerships and increases fundraising efforts between the business community and all Domestic Violence Shelters during ‘DV Awareness Month’ in October.  Participating salon professionals are encouraged and trained to recognize the signs of domestic violence among their clientele and, with a caring and concerned approach and attitude, offer a special hotline to call to seek further assistance where and when appropriate. Learn more about the cause and how to support in your local area: visit: www.cutitout.org. It’s a cause that has the serious attention of the media, as well; the Bellus Academy‘s students and owner were featured in local print and broadcast media to create awareness of the cause and show how the beauty industry is participating.

Photos: Laurence Hardy at 24Photography

Summer Sizzle Idea #4:  ‘Summerzcool’ Client Communication’

Salon pro Terry Dykshorn chooses to keep her clients (and media) consistently informed about what she’s up to every season – and Summer is no exception!  As part of her communication effort, Terry encourages clients to ‘schedule your Summer appointments now because things are heating up’.

Terry e-mails a terrific personal newsletter she calls ‘Fresh Hair‘. Clients contact her here to get on her mail list. For Summer, she shares her pro-active schedule with a unique ‘Summerzcool’ edge — inspired by Jimmy Buffet’s ‘Summerzcool‘ concert tour (which kicks off Terry’s Summer).  Clients love to hear what’s going on in their hairdresser’s life so take a cue from Terry and share it with them in a fun and interesting way with a bit about your salon life, some personal news outside of salon life and yes, always touching on the trends!

Writes Terry in ‘Fresh Hair’: “My summerzcool schedule includes biking in San Diego, a Haircolorist Summit in Los Angeles, a couple of out-of-state weddings, a family reunion with the in-laws, training for triathlons and half marathons, and, oh yeah, taking care of business!”

Terry goes on from their to elaborate on each point  — but the real point here is the perception you are creating for those you want to read about you (your target audience). The more active and successful you are perceived to be, the more interesting you become to clients and the media. Lesson: Get some kind of consistent communication going with your clients and the press…Summertime and anytime!

I like the way Terry signs her e-newsletter: “Your friend in the business of fresh hair.”

Lest we never forget <g> to reinforce our role in our clients lives!

Title Photo: I am Melanie. Hear me Roar

What Are Your Doing This Summer to Avoid the Doldrums?

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