Minal meets… Yasmin Faria, The Hairdressers
This Minal meets is a bit different. I decided to interview one of my clients because she’s had some incredible successes using Facebook marketing to promote her business.
Rather than write a case study, I thought you’d like to hear from her in her own words.
Yasmin and I have been working together since 2017 and she owns The Hairdressers, Hayes.
Business background
Minal: Tell me a bit about your business. What do you specialise in?
Yasmin: We are a small, family-run unisex hairdressing salon based in Hayes in Hillingdon. I run it with my husband, Damian. We employ eight members of staff and we are open six days a week. We cover all aspects of hairdressing and I would say that we specialise in many different areas as each member of our team is a specialist in her own field.
Minal: When and why did you start your business?
Yasmin: The salon was established over 25 years ago and until 2012 was owned by Damian’s two uncles. They retired in 2012, which is when we decided to take the business over from them so we have had it now for eight years. My husband and I decided we wanted a complete change of careers and the opportunity presented itself so we took it.
Using Facebook marketing to grow their business
Minal: You’ve been using Facebook as the main way to reach your target audience. Why did you choose Facebook?
Yasmin: We chose Facebook as it was a platform that I used in my personal life so I was familiar with it. It was also the most used platform when I started to market the salon via social media.
Minal: What are the challenges you found when you first started using Facebook to promote your business?
Yasmin: I found lots of challenges at first as obviously using it for business purposes is completely different from personal use. I didn’t know what kind of things I should be posting, what our clients wanted to see and how often to post.
Minal: We started working together in 2017. What made you feel you needed a marketing coach?
Yasmin: I felt that I needed guidance and assistance from someone that knew what they were doing. Someone who had first-hand experience in this field as I had none at all. I needed help from someone that could help me grow and excel in this field.
Minal: What three things I suggested you do have made the most impact on your Facebook results?
Yasmin: This is easy; planning is the first thing. The more I am able to plan the easier my life is. It really is all in the planning. If I plan my content ahead and schedule my posts then it takes the pressure off of having to think on a daily basis what to post.
Secondly, mixing up my content, supplying my followers with a mixture of educational information, fun content and also never being afraid to ask them what they would like to see. Also, using photos instead of text. I learned very early on that visual posts worked much better than just worded posts.
Thirdly would be to experiment with using videos or talking to my audience myself, this took me a while to do but once I did it more and more it became easier.
Minal: COVID-19 meant you had to close your business. How did using Facebook help you to keep in touch with customers?
Yasmin: Yes, we were closed for a total of 15 weeks. Facebook during this time was extremely important as it kept us in touch with our clients throughout the lockdown period. We posted every single day with a variety of content.
We used this time to update our clients on what our team was doing at home, giving them home hair tips, creating a waiting list for when we were able to open and to inform them what was to be expected of us and them once we were allowed to re-open.
Facebook really was a lifeline during this time for us. We achieved huge engagement from our followers and we even grew the number of likes on our Page by almost 200 people, which was amazing.
On average, we were reaching nearly 500 people a day with our posts! What’s more, an average of 180 people a day were seeing our posts because a friend had interacted with them.
I know this made a huge impact when we reopened. Not only did our regular clients come back, but we also attracted completely new clients.
Minal: You were nervous about making videos but took the plunge during lockdown. What advice would you give to anyone who feels the same?
Yasmin: It’s the best thing I could have done. Yes, it’s very nerve-wracking to start off with. But once you’ve done it and posted and you see your customers responding then you feel such a great sense of pride and achievement.
Be clear and have a good idea of what you want to say, what message you are trying to convey and then go for it. Yes, it may go wrong and you might get your words a little jumbled up but it doesn’t matter, it’s real and it makes your audience like you even more.
Minal: You’ve dabbled with boosting posts, but most of the work you’ve done on Facebook has been without any paid ads. Which would you say has impacted your business the most?
Yasmin: Yes, we’ve dabbled with paid ads in the past but to be honest I am still not sure if this increased our business at all. I would say that the thing that has impacted our business the most would be videos and live content. Our clients seem to engage with this the most as they like and share these posts the most.
Minal: Do you have any time-saving tips for posting on social media that you can share?
Yasmin: Get as organised as you possibly can. Set aside time each week to concentrate on your social media. It’s such an important part of any business that it deserves some dedicated time to spent on it.
Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, what message you want to get across and then get to work.
Plan your posts in advance, schedule as much as you can and then you will also be ahead of yourself. This will leave you time to concentrate on the day-to-day running of your business.
Minal: What would you say to anyone thinking of working with any type of business coach?
Yasmin: I would highly recommend it. I really didn’t realise how much help I needed until I started to actually get help!
It made me focus on my business more, organise my business more and grow my business. My social media presence has grown hugely since working with you. I wouldn’t be where I am now without your help.
I hope hearing from Yasmin about her successes on Facebook helps you. Social media is a great tool for micro businesses to raise awareness of themselves. With a plan and the right mix of content, you too can cook up your own success.