How can you stay in touch with all your customers after they've left the salon? letters? Regular postcards? Timely phone calls? Well...you could, but why not start utilizing social media? It's quick, easy and practically everyone's using it already.

Creating a social media presence for your salon helps you reach more customers, foster more brand loyalty, and it'll even help control your reputation online . Think about it, if someone Googles your business, your social media pages will likely come up.

Whether you're a social media "power user" or just an occasional dabbler, here's a few tips to help up your online ante and make the biggest impact on your customers!

Host Regular Contests
Contests are a quick, but effective, way to engage your customers online. What kind of contest you choose to run and what to award the winner is completely up to you, but we’ve found that simple contests (for example “caption this funny photo!”) work well.

Contests allow you and your business to extend some surprise perks and a feeling of “exclusivity” to your followers, or to highlight a specific product. If done regularly, they can also instill a sense of a excitement among your customer base.

Product Spotlights
Have a new product on your shelves? How about a sale you’re running or a product you’ve discounted? Cover all your bases and post about it on social media. Ensuring that your message gets out to all potential customers never hurts and it’s quick and simple.

Pose a Thought Provoking Question
One of the great assets of social media is the power to enact discussions across long distances with a huge group of people. Why not engage your audience with a special discussion question geared towards hair? For example: “What was your favorite hairstyle at the golden globe awards?” or “Beyonce’s new ‘do: yay or nay?” It’s up to you how you want to frame the questions, but directly reaching out to your followers and inviting a response shows trust and a level of transparency that many followers will appreciate, and it also contributes to the greater online hair extensions community overall. Win-win!

Social Media Exclusive Content
Social media is a great avenue to share and consolidate content from all your websites, if you've got them. However, content that's exclusive to social media (as in, content that only your followers on social media can see) can help drive more followers to your site if they know that what they're getting there is unique. Hey, it also helps people feel special and exclusive, so what's not to like?

Post Consistently
Maybe it seems like a no-brainer, but this goes a long way. Social media posts needn't be a Russian novel i nlength, but when they're made regularly, followers will notice. Consistency is key in engaging customers and keeping them excited for regular updates. When they know something's coming down the pipeline, they're that much more likely to keep checking back.