5 apps you should try in your salon

Find more time for your clients, and yourself

When you run a small business, you’re pulled in several directions every day. If the demands on your time feel overwhelming, take heart: there’s a great salon app out there to make your life way easier.

Technology can easily take us away from the people we’re trying to focus on, so it pays to be careful which ones you let into your life. We’ve chosen ones that are going to keep the focus on the most important part of your business: your clients.

And yes, some apps can be confusing – but these are definitely worth getting your head around. Don’t feel like you have to download these all today. Try setting yourself the goal of testing out one a week for the next month. Who knows, maybe you’ll love all of them!

1. Beautylish

How it works

If you are struggling to navigate your way through the hordes of beauty imagery online (some great and some…well…not so great), Beautylish is a fast lane to the beautiful.

The Beautylish app showcases on-trend beauty and hair imagery – which is all helpful research for your business. There are thousands of step-by-step tutorial videos demonstrating the latest braids, hairstyles, colours and beauty trends to keep you excited.

How can it help me?

Beautylish is a great way to find inspiration to share on your social media pages. Clients love to know that you are on the hunt for the latest and greatest looks. They want to know that you have done the research so they can sit back, relax and trust you to work your magic.

This app is easy to install, and is a great one for you and your staff to flick through for inspiration!

Beautylish is also helpful if your client is struggling to explain the style that they are looking for. The app can be used during a consultation to help your client find an image to express their vision.

2. Instagram

How it works

This one is very well known – but it certainly shouldn’t be overlooked in the hair and beauty industries. Given Instagram’s visual nature and its potential to reach so many customers, it’s an ideal fit for your business.

Instagram is a mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking app that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them either publicly or privately across the app.

How can it help me?

Photographs and videos are a perfect way to show-off new season colour trends, new products that you’re stocking, or the new fit-out at your premises. Instagram is a great tool to keep clients and followers up-to-date through beautiful imagery, that keeps people inspired by, and engaged in, your service.

While updating Instagram does take some time, it’s a small investment to attract new customers and to maintain a strong relationship with your current ones.

3. Picstitch

How it works

Picstitch is a tool that allows you to edit and create collages of your photos for your social media pages. So if you’re getting on Instagram and want an image with three comparison pics within it, this is what you’ll want to use.

How can it help me?

Collages are a great way to show off your stunning ‘before and after’ transformations on your social media pages. These images are a great way to show potential clients the wonderful outcomes that you can produce!

Remember, pixelated or blurred photography doesn’t look great on social media pages. Try to use a good quality camera or smartphone when capturing your photos. The quality of your imagery reflects the quality of your service: so think about that before you hit upload.

4. Hootsuite

How it works

Hootsuite is a social media management tool. It helps you track and manage your social media channels in a concise and simple way.

Hootsuite is synced with all of the major social media pages, so you can view streams from your multiple networks at the same time. So, if you are signed up with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google+ (whew!), you can manage all of these from from Hootsuite! You can also post updates or reply directly to clients across all of your chosen channels.

With so many networks for businesses to manage, it’s a relief to be able to look at them all on one screen, instead of switching from tab to tab, trying to keep track of where you are. Hootsuite is relied upon by many companies today for just this reason.

How can it help me?

The great thing about Hootsuite is that it outlines which social channels are most popular. In turn, you can make an informed decision on what channels are worth focussing your attention.

Hootsuite provides feedback about how your social media platforms have performed over the week, for example, the number of clicks per day received on each specific social channel. If one is performing better than the other, you know where your efforts should lie.

Hootsuite can also indicate what pages, or links, are most popular on your channels. If you have blog content on your pages, for example, it will inform you how many people had followed the link and – we hope – have read your blog. This feedback helps you to know what content is worth sharing, and what content to focus on in the future. It’s all about working smarter, not harder!

Let’s face it – you might not need to be on all the channels. But if you interested in being active on many different social pages, Hootsuite is definitely a helpful tool.

5. Canva

How it works

When you don’t have a designer at hand, but want to create a classy advert for your blog, or social media platforms, try Canva.

Canva has an simple drag-and-drop feature, so you can easily transfer your photos or imagery onto the site for editing. Canva provides professional templates so that you can design graphics that are in line with your branding.

How can it help me?

With Canva, you don’t need to rely on cliché imagery from Google for your upcoming sale, or festive Facebook post. Instead, you can create a quality advert that’s personal to your business.

You can choose layouts that are specific to your social media pages too, making it easy to format your adverts. For example, you can create images for Facebook cover photos (which are rectangular) or an Instagram image (which are usually square).

How to choose?

Have a think about what some of the day-to-day inconveniences are in your salon. No doubt, there is an app that may be help with this issue.

Ultimately, your industry is people-centric. But if there is a technology that can allow you to have more time, and allow you to better concentrate on the person at hand, then that’s a good thing.

The thing with technology is that we connect with some, and not with others. And that’s fine! Not all salon apps are for your salon. My advice is to give them a go and see what works for you and your business. If it helps you, and saves you time – then you’re onto a winner!