Why your salon needs a selfie wall

What's the first thing your client does when they leave an appointment? If they're anything like the 52% of women who admit to posting pictures of themselves online, they'll be taking a selfie to share with their friends. While it's great that they love their look enough to share it, wouldn't it be nice if they could do some marketing for you at the same time? After all, it's one thing telling a friend in the comments where they got their cut done, it's quite another to pose in front of a ready-made selfie wall with your branding, your hashtags and your salon info. We spoke to two salons with selfie walls to find out what it did for their business.

Betties and Baldwins, Bristol

You opened one year ago; was a selfie wall always a plan? Yep, we were always conscious that we wanted an area for taking photos of our work. You don’t have logos on your wall, just an extension of your existing patterned branding. What was behind this decision? The patterns are a big part of our branding so it was a natural choice to continue it through our décor too.  Our patterns are recognisable and we take pics against all of them to vary the content of our social media. We do have a couple of logos on the wall, but we don’t feel we need to take photos in front of them every time; a big logo distracts from the hair! Also if you’re looking at the photos, you’re probably already looking through one of our social media accounts or our website so you know it's us. Do you take the photos or ask the clients to do it?  We usually take pics at the end of the service because we want a clear picture for our website. We do encourage clients to take selfies in the mirror during and after services too though. One of our clients made an amazing Vine video of her colour change all from her perspective in the mirror and it looked great! What hashtags do you use? We ask clients to use #bettiesandbaldwins and #totalbetty for the girls or #totalbaldwin for the guys. We go crazy on hashtags on our own photos to make sure they reach as many of our target audience as possible. We also ask clients to @bettiesandbaldwins in their photos so that we can choose to re-post them if we want to. Fave apps for photos?  We try not to use filters too much because we want to give a realistic representation of what we have done and not project a dishonest or unobtainable image to people. If the lighting isn’t quite depicting a true representation of what we have done, then we'll play with the levels on Instagram to make the picture look closer to how it looked in real life. We like to use PhotoGrid to lay out our photos, as it seems to be one of the few apps that keeps the resolution high enough when we are zooming/cropping photos to fit.

Jessica Hayler, Bosham

Whose idea was it to put a selfie wall in your salon?  It actually came from my husband, whose background in marketing has been invaluable. The design was thanks to his creative eye and his little black book of contacts helped in the printing of the board too. Where did you get the idea from? I wasn't sure about the concept at first, but after seeing multiple examples I agreed. When you actually start looking, it's amazing how many high profile events utilise branded backdrops. From fashion shows to football matches, everyone uses them for interviewing or photographing guests. What benefits do you think a selfie wall has for the salon? Not only does the branding promote your business but it also makes the photo look professional and appealing to potential clients. Clients love to use the selfie wall too, which encourages sharing, likes, retweets and favourites in the world of social media. In other words, it's free promotion of our salon with great before and after shots. Do you take photos after every appointment? It goes without saying that not all of our clients are comfortable with a selfie, but if you know your clients well you'll know who not to ask. Those who you would ask are probably already snapping away! How do you keep track of clients' pictures? We always ask clients to add @jessicahayler so we can repost. Remember, if you want to use a clients photo on any marketing or on social media, make sure you have their permission. We quite often have brides-to-be using our selfie wall for their hair trials, so make sure they're happy and you're happy with the finished look before any social sharing takes place. Any favourite apps to showcase your work?  It’s not just a case of shoot and share these days! Instragram, Pic Collage and InstaMag are our favourite editing apps. We're not a glossy magazine so we don’t edit the images dramatically, butr adding a filter or making a collage will give your before and after shots that professional edge.