In the ever competitive aesthetics and beauty industry it’s important to ensure you’re using the right types of social media to get to the right people for your business. With so many different social media platforms out there it can be confusing deciding which one is best for you. We’ve put together a guide to the main Social Media platforms you can use to help increase your brand presence.
So let’s start with the big one. Facebook has over a billion users and rising so your business cannot really afford to not have a Facebook account. It’s free, easy to use and can be a great way to target and interact with others within medical aesthetics. You can create and share events, opening up more opportunities to collaborate and share knowledge across the beauty industry.
You should be updating your Facebook profile at least once a day. This can be by posting your own original articles, photos of treatments you have carried out, or sharing other people’s posts. You can pay to promote your site or specific posts on facebook but it’s important to keep it personal and not too focused on advertisements.
Twitter is all about the ‘follows’ and is great way of promoting your business with the right people. You will need to follow other people’s accounts- keep it in the industry you work in and any subcategories, so liking aesthetic nurses and medi-spas is fine, liking your local pizza restaurant, not so good. What will then happen is people will start following you back. The more follows you have the more popular you are. Once you have an audience you can then reply on your fantastic content to be shared and to gain new followers organically.
Twitter is sharp and snappy so your tweets need to be eye catching. You should be updating your twitter account several times a day but make sure you are only putting out quality content. If you’ve read a great article on Cold Laser Therapy, tweet it out there. Keep it personable, people hate automated messages and ‘bots’ on Twitter. Just dedicate 30 mins a day to sharing and liking what interests you.
Working in the beauty or medical aesthetics industry means you’re often going to need to share pictures and Instagram is a fantastic way of doing this with 130 million active users. It’s all about engaging with other users and once again it’s important to keep your photos and likes ‘on brand’. Have a look and search for the best accounts to follow and hopefully they – and others – will follow you back..easy! The better your content the more followers you will gain, there are advertising options as with all of the social media platforms, but to start with you definitely want to try and cultivate some organic growth.
Instagram is a way of showing your photos off with options to add filters if needed to add a bit of flair. You can add your own before/after treatment shots, maybe an inspirational quote you’ve read or anything you feel fits your business. You should look at adding content at least once a day and remember always add a hashtag (#) as these are searchable.
Pinterest is different to Instagram as it’s more about curating and putting images together, think of it like a mood board that an interior designer would use.
It is a virtual pinboard allowing user to create and share ‘boards’ around certain topics – want to show off some before and after treatment shots? Create a Pinterest board for it and link it back to your website.
People pin and re-pin what they like so make your board’s dynamic and catchy using some well chosen wording. Visual impact can be seen as more important on Pinterest than any other social media platform as it heavily favours recent content, so update at least daily. This means pinning and re-pinning frequently is necessary to appear within current results for a given search term.
One thing never to forget about any of the social media platforms is that you can add a link to your website, this will not only drive traffic to your site but also improve your search engine optimisation (ranking within googles search engine for your keywords)
Used by many, the business to business service provider LinkedIn can help you make the right contacts. It’s basically good old fashioned networking and in your industry connecting to people is everything.
LinkedIn can be used for recruitment, employee/employer research and offering a company description. It can be the face of your business so it’s vital you and any employees using LinkedIn ensure everything is kept very professional and on brand.
LinkedIn only really needs updating as and when your role or services change, but it’s best to keep an eye on it so check in about once a week. If you have written any interesting industry articles that you would like to share with your community, this is definitely the place to do it, but make sure it is well curated and professional.
There are many other forms of social media platforms you can consider using, the best of the rest being Google+ YouTube and Foursquare, but there is no point setting up these accounts if you do not have the time to manage them. At best it can be a pain trying to remember to update the accounts and at worst a poorly managed site can reflect badly on your business and drive away customers. So unless you are willing to pay for a dedicated social media manager it’s best to stick to any or all of the big four that are best suited to your business needs.
Medico Beauty