Emerson Salon’s New Business Model — Learn Social Media By Example

Emerson Salon - Seattle

If you think social media campaigns are limited to the big players in the consumer market, you are mistaken. And if you believe that a social media campaign needs to be huge in order to succeed, you definitely need to reevaluate your beliefs!

If you’re active on Facebook and Twitter, there is a fair chance that you might have heard of Emerson Salon; the social savvy salon that has enjoyed great success through channels like Facebook, Twitter and their blog.

Idea & Objectives:

Emerson Salon understands the value of social media, even when it comes to such a personal service such as hair grooming! They decided to use the power of social media to their advantage in order to attract customers to their salon and inform them about their latest offers, products, hairstyles, stylists and events within a campaign style framework!

These are some of the messages they have posted on their Twitter accounts for their followers to read, learn and share:

• Friday before Pride! Come in to Emerson to get your rainbow mohawks, purple bobs, or fantastic new cuts for the weekend!
• Beautiful morning! The sun is out. The iPhone4 is out. Perfect day for a haircut at Emerson Salon!
• John has been rocking the cuts and colors at Emerson for 2 months now, check out his bio here: http://bit.ly/bwHUES

Buzz Generated:

Within a short period of time, Emerson was able to gather 12,420 followers on their Twitter account and become listed in 172 lists.

Twitter Chats

As for their Facebook page, they already have around 1,422 people liking them and actively engaging in conversations about the salon’s great reputation, events, staff and so on.

People's reactions about the salon's party

Opinion & Lessons Learned:

I have a thing for simplicity: I just love it! Also, I very much support smaller businesses seeking to grow through unique and simple methods. Therefore, I really liked this campaign!

As for the lessons we could learn from this salon’s campaign, they are as follows:

• In the service business, and especially when using social media for promotion, your employees can play a great role in attracting and retaining customers. Try, as much as possible, to keep them satisfied.
• Knowing which social media channels to use is very important. With the case of services, the more personal the channels the better because you need to promote your service and the environment your customers should expect when they visit your store, salon and so on.
• Never underestimate the power of small businesses; they are a product of so many failing businesses, they have learned from others’ mistakes!

Finally, what do you think of this salon’s campaign? Would you join their community or consider a haircut there? If not, why so?

Looking forward to your comments down below…