5th June 2023
Social media, it’s become an every day part of our lives, but there are parts of it that I believe, if we are not careful, we may live to regret being involved with.
Question: Will we end up regretting aspects of social media?
The world of hairdressing has fully embraced social media in all its glory. From the initial championing of businesses on Facebook (My Space before that) to creating gorgeous smorgasbords of imagery on Instagram, Pinterest boards showcasing every hair cut, colour and style imaginable, and pertinent tweets that covered off serious elements of our world, the hairdressing fraternity used their endless creativity to embrace the new found marketing opportunities that each different platform brought with it.
And then [we] were gradually coerced into creating videos and using apps to put filters over the top of imagery, to enhance or to completely change them, to overlay text and emojis for added visual interest, whilst at the same time being carried along the route of less text, more # and lots of hearts and thumbs ups instead of comments.
It all felt like the world was being encouraged to be creative in a dumbed down way, and I think this is to the detriment of our industry, because for years hairdressers have fought to be recognised as a serious, intelligent and creative force, creating trends, developing new ideas, making people feel great about themselves, nothing basic about that, and yet hairdressing and barbering still has that residue of negativity associated with it from a careers perspective which ultimately the new aspects of social media is just perpetuating.
TikTok, Reels and Stories all push for frivolous posts that, if we are not careful, will undermine what hairdressing and barbering careers are all about. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating a light hearted video so long as it doesn’t distract from the serious messages that need to be shared about hair and what you guys actually do. I have been known to create a silly little TikTok every now and again, but never at the cost of a serious message shared about what it is I actually do.
So, it’s about balance, as is everything in life really. Play around, create light hearted clips that show you being witty and creative at the same time, but don’t make it your main focus for creating awareness about your business and your brand.
Remember to use each different platform to share news and views, images, promotions, stories, product and service information, and in between, every now and again, throw out a little bit of light hearted fun.
Here’s the absolute truth, random videos on TikTok, Reels and Stories invariably get lots of views, but if you look at the people who have viewed, guaranteed you will hardly know any of them, and are they interested in your business? Probably not is the answer. Whereas if you look at followers who like or comment on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter it’s much more likely they are people who are interested in your business and what it has to offer.
