I help small start-ups, and seriously successful salon owners in the skin, beauty, hair and cosmetic industries by delivering smart and effective salon social media solutions.
HI, I'M NATALIE
WHAT IF a client enters your salon, asks you to describe your business in one line (150 characters to be exact), and would walk out if she gets bored?
Statistics show that 80% of Instagram users follow AT LEAST ONE BRAND account. Your potential customers will have a quick look at your bio and if you play your cards right, they will plant that finger on the FOLLOW button.
The main goal of your Instagram page is NOT just to gain followers, but to build a COMMUNITY of people aligned with YOUR BRAND and who are very likely to become customers.
Who do you want to walk into those doors? Write an Instagram bio copy that speaks directly to THEM.
Make sure to make your bio a perfect balance of business pitch, information, and personality that will draw your target market! Keep in mind, the bio is not about you but about your TARGET AUDIENCE!
Now let’s break down the anatomy of your bio in the next few tips.
It’s imperative to communicate EXACTLY what you do on your bio. Make this the first thing they will read.
Imagine your ideal audience and write the copy as how your audience will describe your salon. Make the tone, vocabulary, and personality RESONATE with them.
Take the account @bleachlondon for example.
With the brand’s target market as fun young people who like to experiment with hair dye AND are environmentally conscious, they used a pun on their first line, “Come dye with me …” Immediately after that, they wrote a short description of their products: “Vegan ingredients, recycled packaging and loads of fun.”
@schorembarbier is a “man of few words,” just like many of the shop’s customers, who are after old school and traditional barbershop services. Using simple bullet points, the first point was a nice and simple “old school haircuts & hottowel shaves.”
Instagram also allows clickable account mentions (@) and hashtags (#).
This is the perfect time to mention related accounts to your business either to PROMOTE them or to build ASSOCIATION if the mentioned account is more popular.
Take @butterflyloftsalon for example. They wrote “birthplace of @pulpriothair colour”, a popular brand name with an Instagram account of almost 900k followers. If you are a fan of Pulp Riot, you will instantly show interest in this salon.
You and your staff can also mention your salon’s Instagram page on your personal profiles as your place of work to promote it!
Aside from mentions, your Instagram bio is also a good place to promote your brand’s hashtag.
Check out how @maneaddicts ask their followers to tag their posts with their brand hashtag.
To be clear, hashtags on your bio actually wouldn’t make your profile appear within those hashtags, as they would on actual posts. However, adding your salon’s branded hashtag into your Instagram bio is a great way to give new viewers a PREVIEW of the 1) the posts you have tagged and 2) the community that supports your brand– this his is an OPPORTUNITY for them to IDENTIFY with your market.
If you repost user-generated content, a brand hashtag is a way to gather all your client posts, and also to incentivize clients to promote you on their personal pages, as they will have a chance to be reposted.
The second part of your Instagram bio should include a call-to-action (CTA) as this would appear right ABOVE the link portion.
Instagram allows you to include one clickable link on your profile, so make sure that last part explains where the link leads to and what they can get from it.
For @schorembarbier, they wrote “Our Youtube Channel? 👇🏼” and on Guy Tang’s profile, he used a TV emoji and the description “Youtube hair tutorials.” both followed by a link to their Youtube channels.
For your salon, you can write a call to action to book an appointment or to read more about your services followed by a link to your website or booking page. You can change up this part for when you have promotions, giveaways and the like.
Make sure they know how to FIND you!
Add your LOCATION and contact details to turn your Instagram profile into a one-stop-shop for new visitors.
Including your location will also help to fine-tune your target market. Remember, you would want to target viewers who are going to become customers—people who live on the other side of the world from your salon are NOT who you are trying to attract.
One of the best ways to do this is to switch to an Instagram business profile. In addition to advertising-related advantages, switching to an Instagram business profile also gives you the ability to add key contact options (email or phone number) and your salon address directly to your Instagram bio!
In case you don’t know yet, the name field in your bio is COMPLETELY separate to your username, and the words you use on your name field are searchable on Instagram!
That’s actually a LOST opportunity if you are just practically mirroring the user name on the name field.
For example, a user searches Instagram for ‘Los Angeles hair salon’ (see image below). Guess who shows up first? It’s @butterflyloftsalon who decided to utilise the name field by including searchable keywords instead of just using your salon name.
As a business, you might want to consider using your salon logo (or a shortened version) as your profile picture.
This will instantly introduce your viewers to your brand and would help with BRAND RECOGNITION in the long run. You may create a design that will stand out, like adding an extra outline around the circle’s border but do not stray away from your brand colours and style.
Highlights are like galleries of your stories right below your bio.
They allow you to categorise your stories.
For example, I use highlights to showcase Salon Social Media’s packages, online courses, before and afters, testimonials, and facts about the company. Each of these separate things is categorised into different highlights.
If your bio and grid attract your viewers, your highlights are ADDITIONAL “brochures” for them to peruse. They also add a nice cohesive look to your entire profile.
I discussed above that Instagram ONLY allows ONE clickable link in your bio. But what if you can’t pick which link to include?
What if you have more than one website? Or want to drive traffic to your Facebook profile, product pages and blog posts all at once?
With Linktree adding more than one link to your bio takes less than 5 minutes, giving you more time to focus on the important things.
Here’s how:
1. Go to Linktree.
2. Use your Instagram account to sign-in.
3. An automated URL will be created for you to copy and paste into your Instagram bio.
4. Finally, select the links you’d like to add, organise your links and you’re all set!
Now your existing and potential clients will be able to click through and choose their next interaction with you through multiple channels.
Remember! Instagram is not only for pretty pictures, you can use it to drive ENGAGEMENT AND SALES to your salon business. With the right STRATEGY, your BIO can be that gateway to CONVERSION.
Love this tip? Don’t forget to share and pin!
And don’t forget to use the hashtag #SSMBOSS so I can see the awesome work you’re doing on your Instagram pages!