Hi Everyone

Most of You will have heard Me complain of My adult acne. I’ve suffered with skin breakouts for years. I’ve tried many different treatments through the years but to no avail.

Shortly after Christmas I met Stephanie the owner of FACE on Chapel street in Castlebar. We chatted about My skin troubles and How I had tried everything from Laser to closely monitoring My diet to taking hormonal balancing DIM to even trying antibiotics. I explained how sensitive and reactive My skin was. Stephanie kindly invited Me in to be her guinea pig to try and get My skin under control.

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Hello Everyone 

Today’s Post is about using SnapChat for business. For anyone who doesn’t know me. I’ve run my own salon in Castlebar since 2007. Platinumhairdressing.ie is my small business and in this post I’m going to go through how I have gotten some great results with my SnapChat account. SnapChat is fairly gaining popularity on the social media circus these days. To some folk it’s baffling. However millions of us are totally hooked. Anyway I hope you enjoy the post. Let me know what You think, and please share this with anyone who you think may find it helpful.

Credit to Joanne Sweeney Burke of Digitaltraininginstitute.ie for planting yet another idea in my head from her recent podcast series. If You are doing social media for business You need to follow this lady. 

Enjoy 

Love Maria 

Xx

So I’m a self confessed social media slut, I know I know I really can’t help myself. I’m the over sharer who hashtags like a maniac. I’m the #instahun who has to photograph every meal and I’m geo tag crazy. (By the way I’m highly insulted that there’s no Mayo geotag on Snapchat yet) I feel a campaign brewing. Ive been content creating since 2010 and using Digital platforms to showcase my work and market my business. Of course I had to jump on the SnapChat bandwagon as soon as it appeared. I’ve had my snapchat account for about two years now. ?mrspdilly2b?

Snapchat is a series of ten second videos or photos that tell the story of Your day. As a small business owner Snapchat is like advertising gold dust. Once You have built Your following You get to reach those people directly from Your smartphone to theirs every day. You get to personally speak to Your followers. You can put out whatever type of content You wish. For me personally as a SnapChat user I love to watch people who are giving me information. So as a business owner, I offer my knowledge and skills to my #SnapFam. Having been highly trained as a hairdresser in all aspects of Colouring cutting styling and chemical processes on hair. I’m very knowledgeable on the subject. As a lot of my followers tend to have hair of their own. ?? I offer advice on all types of “hair mares” be it styling, product reccomendation, or colour queries. I get a great response from my video content. I get loads of great feedback and interesting questions from my lovely followers. 

As a hobby I write about my healthy lifestyle here on this blog. I show healthy recipes on SnapChat and I show my food prep. Some meals and how I motivate myself to get to the gym when I’m feeling lazy. I love sharing this as it motivates me and I feel like I have accountability. I love to cook Im a real foodie and I have great fun showing this on SnapChat. All of this personal interaction has really helped to raise my profile and create awareness about my salon. Although I started off using my Snapchat as a hobby the two really compliment each other. I guess I stubbed upon this little gem accidentally. The more people that get to know me through Snapchat, the more people talk about my business and that’s how this works. 

All too often I see social media outlets being used for the hard sell. It’s all about special offers, discounts and deals. How about giving some information away for free??? Sharing some interesting tips that might actually help someone can really benefit Your business in the long term. If someone is having difficulty with a particular problem and You are able to advise and help them with a few sentences, why not? It will make You and them feel great. They in turn will talk positively about Your business and so You have great publicity. SnapChat allows You to do this. 

Building Your own online following is a smart move business wise. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are brilliant So is Instagram. However there can be so much content out there on the feed that Yours can get lost. It can be difficult to reach the correct audience at the right time.I think it’s important to keep a consistent presence across all platforms. All Social accounts need to compliment each other. I think at this moment SnapChat and Facebook live are galloping ahead because of the personal touch. People love to watch and listen to People. It’s up close and personal and it’s fast. There’s also no editing required apart from a filter. 

So there’s my thoughts on SnapChat for business. Snapchat lets Your followers into Your life a little bit. Takes them behind the scenes and builds personal relationships. It’s also considerably less time consuming than typing up posts. A two to three minute snapstory that happens in real time is all it takes. Easy peasy content created. I found talking to the camera a little crazy at first but I love it now. So my top SnapTips are;

• Give helpful information 
• Answer questions 
• Teach a skill
• Show a little humour
• Be truthful 
• Keep it simple and to the point. 
• Keep Your selfie game strong
• Enjoy and have a bit of fun & keep it natural. 
• Don’t forget to add me on SnapChat 

• 

Hi Everyone

I’m still on a high from Saturday nights win at the Irish Blogger Association awards. I actually couldn’t believe it. There were so many brilliant blogs in my category I never thought I stood a chance at all. The excitement was unreal. I had the best night ever. I’m sure You could all tell that from my snap story. Such fun I loved every second. The awards were arranged by Fiona from Cool events.ie

Those of You who know Me well, know that I had been feeling very down since losing our Mum in August. It has been one very difficult year for us as a family. Winning this award really helped to get back my sparkle. It was just the little boost I needed and it’s lovely to know people love what I’m doing with my blog. So basically I’m still buzzing from the excitement of Saturday night.

The awards were held in The Raddisson Golden lane in Dublin. It was a fantastic night with some amazing people and the food was amazing.

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Hi Everyone 

Hope You are all well. This is a very different type of Blog post. It’s kinda business related. I guess the basic principles can apply to any small business really. My business is hairdressing and running a salon is my area of expertise. I have really utilised social media and embraced the trends of our time. I’ve been lucky over the last five or six years. Social media has really helped me to raise my profile as a hairdresser and a business lady. I was inspired to write this post after being to a few events lately. I heard some very strong inspiring women talking about their own journeys through social media channels. Joanne Sweeney Burke @tweetsbyJSB is one. So thought I’d give it a whirl  and write my own piece on what has worked for me as a small business owner in recent years. 

Now first let me tell You, I’m no digital expert. I have learned as I went along. Some was trial and error, some was through training courses, reading blogs etc. I learned more from research from building relationships with other digital divas. I watched and learned studying what was been done by social media experts. My lovely friend Jenny Brennan who runs virtual office Worx in Ballinrobe taught me many tricks on Facebook marketing. As did Inke Oates who works for Jenny. We Mayo ladies have to stick together in the digital world. Louise MC Donnell is Enniscrone based and runs 2Market I also picked up some great tips from Meeting with Louise in person and following her busy Facebook page.  Another expert I like to follow is San Diego based Instagram specialist Jen Herman. I enjoy reading Jens blog posts for her Instagram hints and tips. I love Instagram it’s such a positive place full of beautiful images. My favourite Twitter lady has to be Samantha Kelly @tweetingodess Samantha is a social media expert based in Wexford and the founder of #irishbizparty. This is a great Twitter chat on Wednesday nights everyone can get involved by using the hashtag.

 

 
So where did my zest for social media marketing for my hair salon begin??? Well it all began back in 2009 I hadn’t really a clue what I was doing to be honest. I set up a Facebook profile for my salon, called Glam Divas and started adding friends. God I cringe now when I think of it. It wasn’t the polished professional business page I run today. I had a little Kodak camera and I started flying up photos of every upstyle I was doing in the salon. I photographed my products that were for sale. I took pictures of every head of highlights, colour etc You name it, I photographed and uploaded it. The funny thing is it worked a treat my phone was ringing and loads of local ladies were calling and messaging me for appointments. It was brilliant I loved running that profile I used it to show case my work and I got massive support from the ladies in my local town. 

As time went on, I learned more and got better at my Facebook game. I upgraded to an official Business page Called PLATINUM Hairdressing Maria Conneely the same name as my salon. Now I was able to register with google maps and have the exact location saved on the page. You’d be surprised how handy this is for people visiting the area. It’s free to register and I would definitely recommend doing it. Making it easy for customers to find you is a simple step that they will really appreciate. 

 

 
When You decide to put your work out there on the Internet, it’s like an invitation for customers to come into your business. Opening up your world and your skills to the general public can be scary but it’s so worth it. I have met some of the loveliest people through my salon page. I’ve gained loads of followers who have turned into customers and some have turned into friends. I love the relationship I have with the followers of my page. The ladies who follow me are very supportive and have been so kind to me over the years. They came with me on my wedding prep and weightloss journey last year. Congratulated us on our Marraige in March.Some wrote very kind words to me during my Mothers illness and sympathised sincerely when she passed away in August. Some even came to the funeral to show they cared. I really appreciated those kind gestures at a time of great sadness. I also have gotten huge support for my blog which kind of evolved really from my love of Facebook . I’m very thankful to everyone for this. It has been amazing.

The point I am making is building up a good relationship with customers and followers online can really benefit your business. People like to do business with people. Personal branding is important but the personal touch always wins in the end. People will forget what you did but they will always remember how you made them feel. In an age where digital is taking over, I feel as a salon owner We need to embrace this. It goes back to basics really, a kind word,a little bit of advice, good old fashioned craic and banter. Once it was in the local shop or the pub, now we’re doing it from our smartphones. It’s the age old social way just digital. 

Running a Facebook page for a salon  can be great fun. I always ask permission to take photos of the hairstyles. Most people don’t mind. If they do, I won’t take them. Some of the girls love to be featured on my page. If they love their hair and they feel great in it, I’m delighted to show off the work I’ve done. I always feel really proud showing the beautiful hair I’ve created for my clients online. Let’s face it, we all like pretty things. I’m a very visual gal, I like things to look pretty. I love nothing more than making things look beautiful. I love detail, I love to create, to perfect and to share my beautiful work online where it can be seen and appreciated. 

There has been a lot of talk lately about the impact Facebook is having. Especially all the drama over whether to pay or not to pay. I’ve done both and to be honest I don’t think it matters whether you pay or you don’t. If your content is good you will get an impact. A little tool that has always worked for me is scheduling posts. I have always found this helps to boost my posts on the newsfeed. I tend to go with theme days, it can be colours, bridal, blondes, occasion hair or short cuts. Sticking to a theme can help hold the readers interest. I do a series of related posts with ideas on that theme. I like to post every hour over a 10 hour period. So that’s 10 posts related to one subject. If you get an average of 10 likes per post. That increases your reach on the newsfeed. Remember if you are running a local business like I am. Local people are all on Facebook.

Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and Snapchat are all great  platforms. Believe me I use and love them all. However the most common social media network is still Facebook. You need to know Your audience and the vast majority of people in Your locality are on Facebook. In the case of a hair salon where you are providing a service and customers need to physically come to your premises to purchase your service Facebook is your only man. Never underestimate the power of word of mouth and in my opinion Facebook is the 2015 version. Friends can tag to alert each other to an interesting post. 

   

  
So as my Facebook page grew I caught the blogging bug. I began writing blog posts for my salon on my website 

PLATINUMHAIRDRESSING  

I loved how I could write a long post with photos and explain exactly what I had done and how to the readers. It was far more detailed and informative than a Facebook post. Of course it was leading readers to my website. Facebook is brilliant for sharing links as readers can click straight I and read the posts. This is not available on snapchat or Instagram as of yet anyway. Most of my traffic still comes from Facebook so never underestimate the power it has to reach your existing or potential customers.

So I was hooked on blogging and in July this year I set up MrsDillonsDiary, a lifestyle blog.  These days I run two  Facebook pages one for PLATINUMHAIRDRESSING one for my blog , I also run two Twitter accounts which I love for networking. Instagram which I adore for all the positive vibes, Pinterest I spend less time on. Snapchat where I share my days in real time.

Into the west blogger network is a great support network for Bloggers and Digital influencers.We have loads of meet ups and keep each other updated on all that’s happening in the digital world. I also attended Blogger Conference in Dublin recently. Attending these events really helps as I always come away with fresh ideas for my blog and online marketing. 

Thank You all for reading this, I know it was a long one and it won’t interest everyone. If you know someone who is struggling with social media for their business please share this post. I’m hoping some of my tips might help others. I appreciate Your continued support without You none of this would be possible. Thanks again.

Love Maria xx