By Amara Khajenouri, California Tan Sunless

Are you looking to find more clients and grow your brand awareness within your community? If you answered yes, then you are in the right place! It can be tough to balance a spray tan business with booking clients, training employees and managing the day to day tasks. Social media can easily take a backseat, but it doesn’t have to be that difficult. With a little planning and a clear vision of your target clients, social media can grow your spray tan business, create loyal customers, and help you make more money. Now it’s time to implement a local marketing strategy and connect with your clients through social media.

1. Mix up the content you are creating

Share your brand message on social media by mixing your content, such as photos and videos, to create a story. Social media platforms are constantly changing their features and are allowing users to share information in various ways such as photos, videos, Boomerangs, etc. A great way to add this into your spray tan strategy is to post before and after photos of clients, capture funny team moments through photos and videos, highlights of your newest products on Instagram stories or Facebook Live or maybe a tutorial video on how to use a product at home. Create a well-rounded story of your brand by creating multiple forms of content for customers to want to come back for more!

2. Tag your location

More and more, people are beginning to use social media to search for local businesses, whether they’re looking for new restaurants or finding a spray tan artist. Tagging your location allows a customer to see all the images posted in that location and will be more inclined to visit your space after seeing your work. Not only will they be able to see the images you have posted, but they would be able to see posts from customers who may have visited you before and shared an image of their experiences. You can tag your location on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and more!

3. Interact with your customers who like, tag, and message you

The goal of social media for businesses is to grow their audience, build their clientele, and drive people into their space. Social media is a great way to build customer relationships. It allows you to personally connect and start a conversation with your audience. Your customers want to connect, and it starts with creating posts that drive a conversation and interest in what you have to say. If a client tags you in their spray tan, always respond and thank them for their business and add a personal touch such as talking about the event they are going to that evening. That creates a memorable relationship for the customer, and they will want to come back to your services. This is also a great way to encourage clients to share their photos with their community, and you can repost them on your page!

4. Use targeting and local hashtags in your posts

Hashtags can be a great way to engage with your audience and get found by new customers. It is important to use hashtags that are specific to your brand and your area to attract the right audience. Hashtags are meant to be used in quality, not quantity. Another great way to interact with your audience is by creating a dedicated hashtag to your business where users can share their photos and experiences with you. Encouraging your customers to use the hashtag, share a photo, and post to your business accounts. By doing this, they feel more connected to you and you get more content to post on your page!

5. Create a content calendar and post consistently

A content calendar is a calendar that plans out your social media for a specific timeframe. Before you start posting to your accounts, sit down and develop a content calendar to plan out your postings and have a clear vision of what you want to tell your customers for the next month. A calendar can be very simple such as an Excel spreadsheet or a Google document and is a clear way to organize all the exciting things going on in your business. Set aside a couple hours a week, touch base with your team on what promotions, sales, local events, and national holidays are coming up, and create a calendar around what is important to your business. This allows you to be more strategic, save time, and forces you to plan your marketing with a purpose!