When first starting your own lash business, you will have no clients besides "word of mouth" or family & friends. If you want to be fully booked and constantly having new clients, this is how!
Let's Make That Money!
The #1 tip to being fully booked is SOCIAL MEDIA! Social media usage increases everyday. New techniques, inventions and social life, can all be found on our phones. Using social media is a no brainer when you are trying to expand your clientele , Everyone has a phone and there is no way one person didn't go on there phone at least 5 times a day. Posting on social media is free and if you don't "want" to post on instagram or facebook , that is just an excuse and will be on you when your complaining you don't have a good clientele.
First platform you want is Instagram. This social media platform is based off of hashtags. Hashtags are used when someone searches a key name or something they are looking for, for example, someone is searching brown lashes. If you post a picture with brown lashes and use the hashtag #brownlashes, your picture will pop up and if they like the picture, they will search on how to get that look and if the person is even more interested your hashtag will bring the clientele to your page.
WHAT HASHTAGS DO I USE?
You can use every word under the sun! Always do hashtags in the beginning regarding what is in the photo. Then you can follow up with product brands you used to achieve the look, add locations you are close to and hashtag the city you are in.
FOR EXAMPLE:
lash shape ( #cateye #cateyelashes #Cateyelashmap #cateyelashextentions )
lash curl used ( cc curl )
your position ( #lashtech #lashartist )
city your salon is in ( #lathamsalon )
product brands used ( #NYlash )
color of the eyes ( #blueeyes )
lash style ( #fluffylashes #fulllashes #wispylashes ) A little trick if you can't think of any more hashtags to type, type in keywords like #lash and a bunch of related lash hashtags will pop up and help you with more tags to randomly put that would lead your client to help what they are looking for.
DO's & Don'ts with #
Yes it is great to have tons of hashtags to help guide the seeker but if you use the same hashtags every single time , it will boost down your audience, So every time you post with tags you want each post to be dedicated to the picture with miscellaneous tags as well , Having new tags everytime grabs a different audience each time you create a new post. The goal is to keep grabbing a huge variety of people, not the same people watching your posts every time. In order to get the right audience to find you is to keep the hashtags beauty related. You don't want to type in food when the goal is bookings. You can hashtag popular locations around you to help people look "oh there's a salon near here " That's the only example to help your audience.
Choosing the right photo
Photos play a huge role in social media , you want your photos to be bright and focused.
Taking photos at the right angle helps a lot with choosing which to post. You can never take too many photos! If you don't have to buy extra storage on your phone, you aren't taking enough ! When you have down time, play around with a coworker and ask to take practice photos. You want to hold your phone below the forehead, keep the camera angled with the eye and tell your client to look at the camera, If your clients eyes look huge when they look at the camera, hold up your finger and tell your client to look at your finger , check the angle in your camera and if the eye still looks wide open, tell your client to follow your finger until the eye looks better in the photo. When your clients eyes are shut and drying, this is the only excuse to take above the forehead pics. Try and use LED lighting, but you don't want to be killing your clients eyes. Keep asking them if the light Is too bright for them. There is also a " micro lense " at ( www.nylashsupply.com) with a ring light attached to it and it clips right on your phone. This helps with taking very close up photos, but it can be tricky but once you get the hang of it, how far away or which light setting look better with the eye color. Again, play round with different angles, techniques and positions. NEVER use your flash ! This will make your clients eyes water and this is a no no with " insta worthy" photos, it will make the eye look irritated and people will think you are doing something wrong. Photos need to be clear, bright and crisp! Make sure to get any fly away lashes out of the way, and don't be afraid to use the spoulie to brush the brow hairs in place for the picture. A lot of artist forget about how much detail will go into a photo. Practice makes perfect ladies ! don't be so hard on yourself.