Growing Your Salon and Social Media Presence with Stevie Vincent

Create a memorable experience and your dream clientele will find you

Today, Stevie Vincent Studios’ has become the inclusive and friendly vision that Stevie envisioned three years ago whilst working in a large franchise salon.

“The hair industry has come a long way. There didn’t use to be the good support network for each other that we have now. What makes us successful is an environment where everyone looks after each other and helps each other.”

Attracting your ideal clientele is easy once you’ve hired the right staff and established your company culture.

“We also attract the same kind of clientele. When stylists start they always say ‘the clients are so nice’ and we’re like yeah, they want to be a part of what we’ve built.”

If you’ve got a strong reputation, people will travel.

You’d expect that a cutting edge salon like Stevie Vincent Studios would have to be in the heart of the city, or at least on a super artsy street, but they aren’t! “It’s bizarre, we are in a small, mainly over 80s, retirement village area.” People warned Stevie that she’d have to adapt.

“I was told that due to the area, I’d have to start doing perms and that I’d have to fit in.”

Fortunately, this was not the case. Word of mouth from happy clients, coupled with Stevie’s social media efforts helped grow the salon’s online presence and clientele exponentially.

Using influencers to grow your business

Since she was a solo stylist, Stevie offered her services to Perth influencers who she followed and looked up to. They were excited to collaborate and this really helped spread the word about her hairdressing talent on social media. The effort put into social media and influencers from day one has meant Stevie Vincent Studios doesn’t have to pay for advertising anymore. After all, influencers are like mini content-creators with a built-in advertising channel! Stevie’s advice on working with influencers:

“It has to be a mutual exchange when using influencers. Make sure you like them. Don’t reach out to just anyone. It’s important to reach out to people who you like and follow already. People can tell when something isn’t authentic.”

Stevie prefers influencers who are really arty and creative.

“You want to work with someone who will talk about what you do because they love it, not just because they’ve received something for free or have been paid.”

Want engagement? Post what you love!

When you’re passionate about what you do and you’re being authentic, people will start to pay attention, Stevie says. When Stevie Vincent Studios post a picture of hair they’ve done, they write about what they did, what products and tools they used and how they did it. They also write a little bio about the client so they feel included, too. Because of their willingness to share their craft, 75% of their following is made up of other salons and hairdressers. Stevie loves inspiring her fellow hairstylists, as once upon a time they were one of the first salons in Perth to do bright fashion colours, and Stevie had to look internationally for inspiration.

“Through networking, I’ve been co-educating with international professionals who have a large presence online. Meeting them is amazing because they’re all so nice and normal!”

Even now, international influence is still very important to Stevie.

“I interact with the UK and USA a lot because they have new products and techniques. We then bring them to our salon and go on to teach them in Australia.”

For Stevie, social media was a way to establish these international industry connections. 

Attract the work you want with clever marketing

The images you share matter more than you think. As a rule, Stevie recommends you should share more images of the work you want to do, rather than the images you think you have to post.

“We also use our social media to direct what we’re interested in doing more of in the salon. When we post blonde hair, we get more blondes, pinks, more pinks. When we stopped wanting to dye hair grey- we stopped posting pictures of grey hair and it killed the demand.”

Because of what they post, they’ve influenced their clientele.

“We do 80% bright, vivid colours and 20% natural colours. Post what you love and your dream clients will find you.”

Doing hair for free pays off!

Now that Stevie is involved in education, she always tells her students to not be afraid of doing hair for free. 

“We’re always told to charge what we’re worth but I have over 10 years experience and I’m not even above doing hair for free!”

By occasionally doing hair for free on a willing client, Stevie gains access to the clientele who want to pay for hair like that.

“Get photos of your work out there and show people what you’re capable of.”

Thanks for the chat Stevie! To find out more about how to use influencers in your business, download our Influencer Marketing Guide.