Who is the Voice of Your Salon Online?

If you have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, blog, an e-newsletter or Web site for your tanning salon or for yourself as a salon professional, you have an “online presence.” This presence should be an extension of the values and personality of your salon. So, the important question is: who understands your business best, and who is in charge of updating and communicating with your customers and potential customers via the Internet?

Perhaps you chose a worker in the Y generation, who best understands the ins and outs of Twitter, HTML coding and Facebook culture. And while this person has saved you tons of learning curve time, do they understand how to craft and support your business culture using social media? Or perhaps you even hired a marketing professional to help you craft your messages – but often times they specialize in “broadcasting” your brand, not necessarily building it.

Some would argue you should be casual and conversational in your status updates, tweets or Web content. Others would say you need to always write in a tone that is conducive to a professional business conversation. The correct answer is to do what is right for your salon. Also, certain tones are acceptable in certain venues: your Facebook audience is likely a different demographic than your e-newsletter audience, which is different than your Twitter audience, etc.

So, here are a few pros and cons of using different kinds of employees for social media upkeep, from the Open Small Business Forum:

Top Dog

Having the president or CEO of your salon develop a personality online can have huge benefits, especially for a small business. But CEOs are often “big picture” people, and not necessarily able to keep up with the day-to-day happenings of your business and its customers.

The Generation Y Worker

This generation grew up on computers and understands social media culture. But, do they understand the gravity of how quickly an online reputation can be damaged by one off-hand tweet or silly blog? To them, this might be an interesting pastime or even a personal hobby, but they must also think of this work as a very important job.

Any Employee Who Happens to Have the Time at Any Given Moment

It seems like a fair choice to divide up the time and effort for social media marketing between several employees, and it is, especially when so many are overworked. But this can also lead to duplicate posts/information, varying “voices” and general misunderstanding about who updated what and when.

So, which voice is right for you?

Source:

Open Small Business Forum