Salon Business Plan: Grow your social media marketing using SMART goals

We recently looked at how using the SMART formula (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound) around KPIs can effectively help grow results and key business goals. Now, let’s take a look at how applying the same principle of setting SMART goals can help you to build and retain customers using the power of Social Media Marketing.

SMART Social Media with Hayley Mears from SixUnderground Media from Timely on Vimeo.

Social Media Marketing is no doubt invaluable for the growth of any small business. Creating a strategy that even the smallest business can thrive with should be among your top business goals for  2016. Keeping on top of social media starts with a well planned strategy.  We spoke to Hayley Mears from Six Underground Media, and asked what her strategy is for effective social media planning…

Using the SMART framework takes all the stress out of the planning process… So let’s get started.

Specific

The first thing to do is get clear on your goal. Make sure it’s well defined. This starts with being specific.

DON’T USE: Get more likes

DO USE: Increase our audience this year.  Drive our new audience to our website, through online booking and into our appointment book.

What’s the point of all this posting, following, growing and effort if all those new likes are just following you around on your social media pages? It ultimately needs to drive clients into your business and make your business profitable and successful. Social media marketing is a very relevant part of your business growth plan, make sure it’s driving traffic to your website, through your online booking button and into your appointment book! Otherwise, your number of followers is simply what is commonly referred to as a vanity metric.

Measurable

The next SMART step is to define ways to measure whether or not you’re being successful in achieving your goal.

DON’T USE: Get more likes every month

DO USE: Increase our like audience this year from 1,000 to 3,000  (Increase likes by 166 per month, and 38 per week). Drive our new audience to our website, online booking button and into our appointment book.

Getting clear on the incremental steps required each week and month ensures you are on track toward to your larger goal.

Schedule in a time each week to take a look at your growth and engagement results. Document your weekly scores of new likes, engagement scores and post reach.  If you’re buying likes, check on your cost per like and make sure it doesn’t get over $1 per like (ideally around $0.50). If you’re running competitions to increase your following, check you’re getting results and if not – change it up and try something new.

Attainable

Goals that are too large OR too small are not only counter-productive but they can also affect your morale and momentum. It should be a slight stretch goal but also something that you can enjoy gaining some wins with.

DON’T USE: Triple my likes each month

DO USE: Increase our like audience this year from 1,000 to 3,000  (Increase likes by 166 per month, and 38 per week)  Have a mix of buying likes and competitions to ‘like the page and win’. Drive our new audience to our website, online booking and into our appointment book.

Be realistic with your social media marketing time commitments, plan how frequently you can commit to posting content and engaging your followers. Book out time in your appointment book just like a client booking, it holds you accountable to stick to your plan.

Finally, always remember to celebrate the wins, no matter how small. You deserve it.

Relevant

Your social media marketing strategy should be aligned towards achieving your overall business goals – there needs to be a clear why am I doing it!

DON’T USE: Get more likes so we look great to other salons and our customers.

DO USE: Increase our like audience this year from 1,000 to 3,000  (Increase likes by 166 per month, and 38 per week)  Have a mix of buying likes and competitions to ‘like the page and win. Drive our new audience to our website, online booking and 6 new appointments booked each week to support our 2016/17 sales revenue goals.

Your Social media plans will be helping you work toward your larger goal of increasing your businesses income. There is no point posting, engaging or growing your following just to look good… any business activity should be returning on your investment of time and money. For a hair and beauty salon that equates to bookings in your appointment book.

Time-bound

The time frame for achieving your goals must be clearly stated to be effective.

For any goal to be effective, the time frame for achieving the goal must be clearly stated.

DON’T USE: Grow likes and bookings this year

DO USE: Increase our like audience this year from 1,000 to 3,000  (Increase likes by 166 per month, and 38 per week) by March 31st, 2017. Have a mix of buying likes and competitions to ‘like the page and win. Drive our new audience to our website, online booking and 6 new  appointments booked each week to support our 2016/7 sales revenue goals.
And there you have it, a full S.M.A.R.T plan for your Social Media activity for this year.

Remember: A goal is only a dream with a deadline!

Are you ready to grow your salon revenue? You can’t arrive at your destination until you know where you’re going.