What’s your idea of a perfectly curated barber or salon social media feed? Is it snap after snap of your edgy work?

Well, while it’s so super important to post images of your work regularly, it also needs to be spread out with content designed to engage your followers. You see, when you continuously post photos of your stellar work, your feed can start to look a little same-same and you will fall victim to the dreaded scroll. Eeek!

So what’s the answer? It’s simple really – add some flavour and variety to your social feeds by putting some structure around your social strategy. You can use what we call ‘content pillars’ to create a framework for your social media strategy, ensuring you are posting a variety of content to keep your followers interested.

The key to content pillars is not overselling to your social followers, but providing interesting and engaging content. The infamous Gary V has a well known saying… Jab, jab, jab, right hook! What he means is deliver value, value, value, and some more value… And then swoop in with the sell. Pow!

To start creating a framework for your social strategy, begin by getting to know the content pillars and choosing five or six content categories to cycle through. Here are 10 examples of content pillars that are applicable to the barber and salon industry. Have a read, then take your pick!

1. Personal insights

This pillar is all about you, honey! People LOVE hearing stories. They want to know your success story, how you got to where you are today, how you built your team, and your fails and your triumphs along the way. They want to know what lights you up every single day.

The more authentic you are the more they’ll be interested in following and engaging with you. This is where you can share your life’s lessons, your deepest darkest secrets or guilty pleasures – like enjoying a cheeky glass of champagne or ice-cold beer! Your followers want to get to know you better as this is the part of you they can relate to. We have a hunch that if you went back and looked at your insights, some of your most engaging posts would be the ones where you’ve revealed a little piece of yourself.

2. Your “why?”

This is what motivates you to get out of bed each day! This pillar is all about answering questions around your motivations and reasons. Why are you in business? What are your ‘inner’ motivators? Why do you do what you do? This is a different level to personal insights and you can definitely delve into the nitty-gritty of what makes you tick.

3. Team member showcase

Lift the veil to the BEYOND AMAZING people that make your business hum! Introduce them to your followers so they can put a face to a name. Who are they, what do they do, spotlight their story, share random facts – people love random facts!

4. Tutorial / how-to / trade secret

A tutorial or how-to post is a way to inform your audience and teach them something insightful or share a trade secret. People love hot-tips and learning a trick or two from the experts – YOU!

5. Inspirational / motivational

Compelling quotes can inspire or motivate your audience to seize the day and add a little “share factor” to your social. You’ll notice your followers love to tag their friends in fun quote posts. Bring some humour into it to show off your personality too.

6. Product / service focus

This is one of your salesy-type pillars – it’s a right hook! Posting about your products and services will inform and educate your audience on your offerings. When you post about your products and services, make sure to post about your specialities – not just regular haircut and foils. Focusing on the benefits of the product or service can pique customer interest. You can use a client testimonial to promote this pillar if you like too – these can be so powerful in driving action from your followers!

7. Profile your work

Show and talk about the next-level transformations that happen in your shop or salon, but make sure it doesn’t dominate your feed! Use it as just one of the content pillars.

8. Humour

Injecting humour into your feed is a perfect way to show off your brand’s personality. Remember at the end of the day you’re building an authentic brand, so think bigger than bricks and mortar!

9. Provoke engagement / ask questions

Social media is all about attracting engagement (likes, comments, interactions), so reel your audience into the conversation by asking them a question. Humans love giving their two cents and reading what other people have to say. So start asking and get the chatter going!

10. Sales / promotion

Heyo, it’s another right hook! Posting about promotions such as sales or last-minute bookings is a great promotional tool to attract bookings. By advertising on your social feeds, you’re encouraging your clients to follow you as they can be up-to-date with latest promotions or snag a last minute opening. And who doesn’t love a good deal?

So there you have it!

Remember, pick five or six of these and cycle through them so you’re profiling your work every fifth or sixth photo – not every single time you post! It will create refreshing variety in your feed especially if you’re posting every day.