How To Stay Consistent with Posting on Social Media and in Your Marketing

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. I am excited for today's episode. You are in for a good one because I am gonna be breaking down an entire comprehensive system that is going to help you with one of the biggest pain points that I know that you have when it comes to showing up in your marketing, and that is showing up consistently.

Posting on a consistent, regular basis, showing up consistently in your marketing to make sure that you have a steady flow of new potential clients coming through the door. And I find all too often that when somebody has an issue with this, it's because they don't have the strong fundamentals and foundations that are super, super, super important to have in place to make it so you can confidently, with ease, show up consistently. So if you're ready to get into it with me and Katelin, then we're gonna pop the F off today with you, so let's go. What's the tea, friend?

My name's Hunter Donia, industry business educator for hairstylists, but my friends just call me Hunty. And I'm Katelin, the CMO for Team Hunty, here to offer additional perspectives and kickass marketing advice. Whether it be growing your clientele, making more money, or automating and streamlining your systems, in the next 20 minutes or so, you'll be hearing realistic, actionable strategies to create a beautiful career for yourself behind the chair. So if you're ready to get into it, welcome to the Modern Hairstylist podcast.

Hi, Katelin. Hey, Hunty. What's the tea, girl? I, you know, I knew you were gonna ask me that today, so I was, like, trying to think of, like, a really, like, out there tea that I could say.

Yeah. Um, but I'm just gonna go with a nice English breakfast with two sugars and a little bit of milk. Shut up. That...

Okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm like London fog today. Mm-mm.

Yeah, a good London fog. Okay, listen. So today, we're gonna be breaking down for you, my friend, uh, all about posting consistently on social media, and I hope this isn't too clickbait-y because we're not actually gonna be talking about, like, posting consistently. We're gonna be talking about the foundations and fundamentals that you need to be showing up consistently because it's absolutely impossible for you to show up consistently if you don't have these foundations.

The reason why you're not showing up consistently is because you don't have the systems that make it easy for you. I know for me personally, like, way back when I was posting on social, um, to try and grow my clientele when I was in a brand-new area, before I got the education that I needed, I was just kind of posting blindly. Like, I was posting pictures of my work, and I was coming up with captions on the spot, and I was just, like, describing the hair, and I was just throwing words out there and hoping that things hit. But once I got some really good, strong marketing fundamentals and I created these systems for myself that I could lean back on whenever I was going to go ahead and post on social media or batch my content, I was able to show up so much more consistently and creating content, and not only just creating regular content on a consistent basis, but also creating content that was actually effective in getting clients through the door became a whole lot easier.

It really, truly did. I, I feel like if people aren't going in with a really strong strategic plan, then what ends up happening is, is we get overwhelmed. We sit down, and we're like, "Okay, we're gonna batch a month's worth of social media content," right? And then we don't know what to say.

We run out of ideas. It's hard for us to come up with ideas. We go in, on social media, and we look at what everybody else is doing, which isn't gonna be content that's gonna speak to your ideal client because their ideal client might be different than yours, right? And so what, what we're gonna be covering today is an entire marketing system for you that you can create in your own business, in your own marketing system, so that way, you feel more confident in showing up consistently, it's easier for you to show up, and the content that you post will actually convert new potential clients into butts in your chair, ideal butts.

We like ideal butts. So first and foremost, okay, and listen, here's the tea. Here's the tea. If you've gone through some sort of marketing program already, like, if you've heard of this con- these concepts before, I do not give a shit because I have seen people who have gone through programs and gotten this stuff set up for themselves before, and they did not get it right, like, at all.

So if this seems like it's review for you, I don't care. You need to listen to this episode. I just did funnel audits in my, in my, in my membership with my people in there who are absolutely so brilliant and amazing, and a lot of them, like, who have gone through a million educational programs and done things like this a million times still don't have this down. I, it's- it's- it's really, like, it's really crazy to me, and I think after me, myself, going through so many different educational programs and reading so many books, I've seen this being taught in so many different ways, and I think that I've been able to take, like, the best of the best and smash it all together into what I believe you need to know, so that way, c- you can comprehend it in a really effective way.

So because marketing is hard. Marketing is super hard. For some people, it just comes really naturally, and for some people, it just straight-up doesn't. But regardless, even if you do, even if it does come to you naturally, it's still difficult to set these things up properly.

And so what I'm hoping for you today, even if this might seem like review, is that you sit down, and you relax, and you enjoy this episode, and you really reflect on what you've created thus far, okay? So let's talk about this marketing system that I'm talking about. So this is the marketing system that every single business, period, business should have. I don't care if you're a beauty business.

I don't care if you're a tattoo shop. I don't care if you're a Fortune 500 company. I don't care if you manufacture fucking metal. I don't care.

This is what you need, all rightSo, the very first thing that we need is an ideal client profile, target market, whatever the hell you wanna ta— whatever the hell you wanna call it, okay? There's a million things that you wanna call it, okay? And an ideal client profile, a target market, whatever— whatever you wanna call it, okay, has been around for, like, for freaking decades at this point. This is something that is not new.

This is something that Fortune 500 companies have been using since—for years and years and years and years with basic marketing theory. However, although it is a staple thing, although it is a very common thing that all businesses probably know about in one way or another if they've gotten the marketing education, they all too often don't get it right. And they end up having a really difficult time getting ideal potential clients to the door and have a really difficult time coming up with the correct copy, content, and factors of advertising. And it becomes difficult for them, and then they can't show up consistently because they don't have this confident structure, right?

So, when it comes to an ideal client profile, what you wanna be doing is you want to be using real data, real research, and real feedback to understand these types of humans and what their attributes are, their pain points, and their objections. That is what your goal is with your ideal client profile. All too often, what I've seen in my own programs that I've taken and the plethora of programs that I've taken is that somebody will ask you to create some sort of ideal client profile with no basis to it. It's just kind of like, "I'm just gonna pull this out of thin air, and I'm gonna choose, like, what colors they like and, like, make it all pretty and cool and decide that they like, mm, to spend money and they like to take care of themselves, and then everything is gonna be great."

And when in reality, it's like, this person, like, does not exist. Like, you are creating this person out of your brain, right? And what ends up happening with that is, is that you don't get accurate results for how to actually speak to the person that you want to target. Because real human beings have real lives and real attributes, real pain points, and real objections that you should be collecting data from and using that data to then market to that same type of person based upon what their pain points are and then bridge their pain points to your solutions.

You're not gonna know how to bridge your solutions, your specialty, what you uniquely have to offer if you don't understand this person's life and what they want and what their pain points are from the inside and out. And the pain points, I feel like, is where we really miss the mark. If you don't understand this person's pain points, if you don't understand the problems that you're solving, then you're never gonna be able to connect to a person and make them actually wanna come book with you. So, what I would suggest that you do is, is that you pull real data for your ideal client profile and that you create one in which you're gonna be able to know exactly who that person is and how to speak to them.

And that right off the bat is gonna help you with the content that you come up with. It's gonna make you sit— sitting down and figuring out the words to say or the reels to make 10,000 times easier because you're gonna know who exactly you're talking to. You wanna know that person like they are your mom, like they are your daughter, like they are your son, like they are your best friend. You wanna know them better than you know yourself, okay?

And that will help you come up with good content consistently. And we're gonna be breaking down an ideal client profile a lot more in-depth and, like, the biggest mistakes that I see with this in a couple episodes later because there is a whole lot that we do wrong with this. Like, a whole lot. And I'm like, "No wonder why people don't know why this isn't working."

Like, I— like, I see it all the time. So, we'll talk more about that in another episode. But the very first part of your system is your ideal client profile. And then we have your focus funnel.

A marketing funnel is something that has been around also for decades, the same way that an ideal client profile or target market has been around for decades. However, we haven't done the education as an industry because we don't have this business education that these other industries have. And all too often, because this is the hardest stuff, like, coming up with all of this is absolutely the hardest part of marketing. Like, it is so incredibly difficult, right?

And so all too often, we don't get it right. So, with a marketing funnel, what you need to understand is your customer's journey from when they become aware of you all the way until they are deciding whether or not they wanna do business with you. It's, like, literally if you think of a funnel, right, like, bigger at the top and then, uh, inclining to smaller at the bottom, right? Um, you're trying to get as many people into that funnel as possible.

Ideal people, right? Ideal people into that funnel as possible. And then put them through a journey where they will consistently get content from you, um, where they will feel nurtured, and then they will—that will increase their trust in coming to see you and get them more and more interested in your solutions that you have to offer to them. And so what I all too often see is that us as business owners, just in general, we want to dominate all of these platforms, right?

We wanna be on every single platform possible with digital, social media now, and in real life as well too, right? We wanna be in every local newspaper. We wanna be e— our cards we want in every single local small business. We want to be on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, um, NextDoor.

We wanna be on Yelp, Google My Business. We wanna be everywhere. And what ends up happening is you aren't able to give 100%. And what ends up happening is because of that is that all of your efforts that you're pouring into a million different things go to complete waste because you're not able to show up consistently in all these different places.

Not to mention, this is where your ideal client profile becomes really important. Not to mention, your ideal client isn't even hanging out in the majority of those spaces, right?You need to understand where your ideal client, from real data and feedback, is going to search for their service providers, or where they're gonna happen to come across service providers such as yourself in order for you to decide which one or two channels should I focus 100% of my efforts on. Because that is when you will get a real return on your investment of time, not when you are completely spread thin and overwhelmed.

Not to mention, you don't even ... Even if you are showing up consistently in all these spaces, it's gonna burn you the hell out, and you're gonna spend so much time doing it. So instead of spreading yourself so thin and putting in a lot of effort for a really minimal return on your investment, let's focus 100% of our efforts into one or two channels that actually make sense and that will actually get you business. And what'll end up happening is once those work for you, once those are well-oiled machines, and once you've grown your business to a state of revenue where you have st- a chance to scale, and you have a broader range of space, time, and energy, and resources, and possibly delegation, that is when we can start to branch out and dominate other platforms.

But you have to get one working first. You have to make it so you have one completely figured out and taken care of before we move onto the next thing. This is a rule of thumb for any of your efforts at all in your business. You need to make sure that the original thing that you are working on is completely well-oiled and beautiful and working super great for you before we go and venture off and add other things onto it, because it will just make your life harder, and the return on your investment will be just lower, period.

So I just ... To add onto that, I feel like I just need to, like, address the elephant in the room and, like, really break some hearts here. As somebody that, like, is on Instagram as my main platform, you might need to know this, friend, but if your target market does not live on Instagram, why in the fresh hell are you spending so much time marketing on Instagram? You might not need to be there, and you might be wasting your time there.

So, please take that into consideration when you are going about this specific part of your marketing. It is seriously crucial, and it could save you so much time and energy and all of the good things. Y'all should have seen me doing a little dance over here, girl. Like, yes.

Like, Instagram seems really sexy, right? Like, it seems like this really sexy, amazing platform. And we, as hairstylists, love it, because it's so visual, and we're able to connect with other hairstylists. We're able to see other work.

We're able to see these influencers and their techniques and the business education and all the things. You are not your client. Your client isn't a hairdresser. Your client might be a hairdresser.

Your- your- your client might be you, right? But the majority of the time, that's not the case. And so, again, going back to who is your ideal client and where are they hanging out, where are they most likely to find you, and you will only find that out through real data and feedback, like, period. So thank you for sharing that.

I completely agree. So, we figure out what our channels are. We figured out what our ideal client profile is so that way we could figure out what the channels are. Now, we go into content pillars.

So content pillars are going to be the type of content that you're gonna be consistently posting about within certain themes based upon who your ideal client is, what their pain points are, what their attributes are, and what their objections are. Every single piece of content that you post should be addressing one of those things. Every single piece of content should have an intention behind it. It should be nurturing that person.

It should be relating to that person. It should be building trust between you and that person. Even though you've never met them before and they've me- never met you, you want this person to feel like, "Holy shit, this hairstylist understands me inside and out." And by doing real data, real feedback, real research, you will understand how to talk to that person in that way and make them feel that way.

So with these content pillars, you will set up your content themes and your content pillars, and you'll be able to come up with an endless amount of content by mixing and matching them together, right? So you can have themes such as, like, educated- educative content, um, personality content, et cetera, et cetera. And then you could take these recurring pillars that your client might have, such as, like, they have a pain point around dry scalp. They have a pain point around thin hair, right?

And then you can mix those all together and come up with, like, a million caption ideas and content ideas right off the bat. And you'll make sure, because you have these set pillars in your system, you'll make sure that every piece of content, not only are you coming up with fresh, new ideas for them all the time, but all of the ideas that you come up with will be effective in speaking to that person, because they are topics that that person actually gives a shit about, period. The next thing that we figure out in our focus funnel is our active and passive marketing efforts. So I've defined this in previous episodes.

I'm gonna define it again. Active marketing are the efforts that you make to put yourself in front of the potential new client. Passive marketing is optimizing your search, optimizing the chance of somebody happening to stumble upon you, and making sure that the content that you have in place is really great, so that way when somebody does stumble upon you, they want to learn more from you. So that's the difference.

Active marketing could include you going and commenting on other people's posts on Instagram. Passive marketing is you posting on Instagram, and you putting hashtags in the- in the description. Those are your examples, okay? And so, what I suggest that you do is, is that you create and you commit to active and passive marketing efforts that are very effective in getting this specific ideal client to want to do business with you in relation to the channel that you're using and the content that you're posting, right?

So, what I all too often see is that people focus way too much on passive marketing, and they don't understand why it's not working for them. And it, I mean, it could be all of the things that I've already mentioned, but it could also be the fact that you're not getting bodies to actually look at the things that you're posting. Like, you could be posting every single freaking day on Instagram, and it could be amazing and gorgeous and beautiful, but if you don't have any eyeballs on your content, then it's all gonna go to waste. And so the way that we get eyeballs, very intentionally, is through active marketing.

And so what I want people to do, and what I teach people to do in Chief Marketing Hairstylist, which we'll be talking about in just a little bit, is how to choose the right active and passive marketing efforts that they should be consistently doing on a regular basis. Then we have S-O-Ps. We have standard operating procedures, hunty. I have defined, I have named this a million times.

I'll define it and name it again. Standard operating procedures are a set, documented process of the thing, all the things that you do in your business, right? And the key word there is documented. This is something where, like, you have it on paper, you have it in Google Doc, a step-by-step plan for you to follow whenever you're carrying out any of an, any operational thing in your business.

So, for example, any operation in your marketing that you have to carry out, such as batching social media content, filming reels, coming up with captions, editing photos, whatever it may be, you have a set plan for how you go about doing everything. And this, my friend, is the biggest key secret to showing up consistently on social media, because you have a system that you can lay back on and you can check things off on a list. I know my ADHD ass, I need a list, honey. I need a checklist.

I need to be like, okay, this is step one, this is step two, this is step three. Otherwise, I'm gonna get distracted, I'm gonna get sidetracked, and I'm not gonna have anything to follow along with. And so creating an SOP for yourself where you have dates, times, and consistent bases where you follow those very, very firmly, right, and you have that system to lean back on, this procedure to lay back on, allows you to show up more consistently without overwhelm, without getting distracted, and, um, takes all the guessing work out of it for you so you can just show up and take action instead of figuring out the order of your procedures. What's the tea, Caitlin?

I echo everything that you just said. I just spilled this tea so hard that you're speechless. It's everywhere. I can't clean it up fast enough.

Scolding. Listen, here's the tea, my friend. So, this is, like, my entire marketing system structure that I teach, okay? And what is so exciting and so beautiful is that we are just now starting to sell tickets to our Chief Marketing Hairstylist workshop.

This workshop is going to teach you how to create your step-by-step marketing system from the ground up in less than four hours. This is not a 15 fr-freaking module course. This is not, like, something that's gonna take you two years to figure out. This is something where I'm gonna be with you live, with other like-minded peers and hairstylists just like you, and I'm gonna show you exactly how to set all of this up in the right way from the very beginning.

We're gonna teach you how to solicit real data and real feedback from ideal clients so you are very clear about who to speak to. We're gonna be teaching you how to choose the right channels, the right content pillars, and the right active-passive marketing efforts. We're gonna create a whole visual focus funnel for you, and SOPs for you to be falling back on so that way you can show up more consistently in your social media and be assured that you are getting more ideal client requests into your chair. This stuff is important right now.

This stuff is very important right now moving into this next year, because what has worked for us thus far is not going to be the same thing that's working for us moving forward as easily. These rules don't change. Like I said, this stuff has been around for decades. However, we've gotten away with only doing this stuff half-assed.

Moving forward, we need to be doing this stuff with real intention, real focus, because the competition is high, the standard for people and how they're spending money is very high, and if we don't know how to connect with people and show up consistently in the right way, we're not gonna get the new potential guest requests that we need to keep us afloat and keep us growing and making the coins. So, I am very excited to invite you to this workshop. If you would like to check out tickets to it and all that's included and all the things, 'cause there's a bunch of bonuses and there's a lot of fun things that we're doing and it's gonna be great, you can go to hunterdoni.com/marketing, and there you will find all the information that you need.

Or you can go to the show notes of this podcast episode and check out the tea there, my friends. I hope that I'll see you in Chief Marketing Hairstylist, my friend. I hope that I will see you this next episode of the Modern Hairstylist podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in.

If this gave you any light bulb moments, if this gave you any clarity about your systems and why you're not able to show up consistently, whatever it may be, I'd really appreciate if you left a five-star review wherever you're listening to this. It helps us reach more h- like-minded hairstylists just like you who are trying to revolutionize and modernize our industry. So, I appreciate you. We'll see you in the next episode.

Peace out, girl scout. Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2023 Hunter Donia LLC.