Do you want your tanning salon to have the most effective social media marketing? Put it in the hands of your Millennial salon staff.
I recommend this to many of my clients, including one in Texas who I interviewed for this Vault content. He runs a solid social media strategy at his two-location chain. His approach? He encourages his Millennial salon employees to take the reins on much of the salon chain’s social media promotions. The reasoning behind this is straightforward – Millennials live on social media – and his results are nothing short of fabulous. Now, I’m here to encourage you to let your Millennial staff promote your tanning salon on social media.
Start Small at Your Tanning Salon
To promote his tanning salon, my client uses all forms of social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, and text messaging. He allowed his younger employees to post, snap, and tweet to their accounts while they’re work. It started out small, and as they became more successful with it, he increased the amount of social media promotions his employees could do during their shifts.
Once he felt his staff was ready to increase their social media marketing output, my client placed them on this schedule:
- They’re encouraged to post to their own social media accounts, which increases the salon’s reach among Millennials.
- Each staff member is required to make a minimum of three SnapChats / social media posts per shift.
- Posts include pics of the latest tanning lotion specials, tanning units, lobby shots, and nearly anything else that can be used to promote the tanning salon.
- Employees who’ve done this for a while are eventually required to do one Facebook live video that promotes the salon per shift.
Creative Social Media Marketing
What do my client’s staff post while they’re at work? Just about everything, according to him. They Snapchat pics of tanning lotions, tanning beds, and our sunless booth. Staff members also Snapchat videos of the salon and its current specials. The results my client gets speak to the success of his approach to social media marketing. He told me that it really gets the young tanners’ attention, which is what any owner wants.
Make Sure to Protect Your Business
Allowing Millennial employees to put up social media posts doesn’t mean handing your passwords over to employees who might not be there in a month. There are two ways to have your young employees do your social media marketing and still stay safe:
- Have them put up their posts on the company computer or your phone while you’re present.
- Have them share pre-approved posts onto your page from their accounts. (This is a great way to expose your tanning salon to your employee’s friends and family.
While you’d like to think that all your employees will stay with you for years until they finally put in a two-week notice, it doesn’t always work that way. People quit or have their positions terminated due to theft, no-call/no-shows, laziness, etc. That’s why you never hand over complete control of your social media identity to your employees. Make sure you log in on your phone or computer and you are present before, during, and after your Millennial staff makes their posts. It’s also good to pre-approve the post.
Now it’s Your Turn!
Some tanning salon owners might think that requiring their Millennial employees to promote the salon on social media would take the fun out it. Quite the opposite is true. They love to do it, according to my client. It offers his employees a fun and creative outlet while they’re at work, and they really enjoy the fact that the owner asks for their input. He also said that he’s happy to help his employees feel like they’re contributing more to the business. Best of all, he loves the increase in Millennial tanners at his two tanning salon locations.
Are you a tanning salon with at least one Millennial on your staff? If so, you should try this approach to social media marketing. My client’s marketing plan, and the examples included with this story, can be a jumping-off point for you. Take what he’s done and put your spin on it. This will promote your tanning salon to Millennials and ultimately attract more tanners. Good luck!
